World Religions - Mormonism

When you hear the word Mormon, what image or images immediately come to your mind? Clean living? A strong family commitment? Maybe the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, you know, singing the Hallelujah Chorus on TV at Christmas time.

It's beautiful, isn't it? Maybe what comes to mind is Brigham Young University with their perennially powerful athletic programs. Or maybe when you hear the word Mormon, you think of Marie Osmond or Bill Marriott and his hotel empire or Senator Orrin Hatch or maybe a whole host of other successful people and enterprises. You know, even 25 years ago, the word Mormon would have conjured up a whole different set of mental images for the average American. Twenty-five years ago, the word Mormon would have meant a conservative, non-smoking, non-boozing, non-coffee drinking person who had three wives and lived in Utah. But you know, over the last 25 years, there has been an enormous change in public perception when it comes to the Mormons.

And this has not been accidental at all. To the contrary, the Mormon Church has spent literally tens of millions of dollars to try to change public opinion about Mormons over the last 25 years. And the impression that they are trying to create is twofold. Number one, that Mormons are hardworking, clean living, successful, family-oriented people who would make fine employees, neighbors, and friends. And second, that Mormonism is merely another slant on Christianity.

It is merely another Christian nuance. It is merely another Christian denomination. Now the Mormons have the money to do this kind of imaging, to do this kind of marketing of themselves. The Mormon Church is the second largest financial institution west of the Mississippi River.

Offerings pour into Salt Lake City at the rate of four million dollars a day, totaling more than two billion dollars a year in income. And using this enormous financial empire, the Mormons have set out to market themselves right alongside fundamental Christianity. They've been using radio and television and publications to espouse Christian quote unquote values. They teach their missionaries how to use Christian quote unquote language. And it's all aimed at producing the image that Mormonism is merely another branch of true biblical Christianity. Maybe some of you have seen the spots that are running on television around here about Mormonism these days. Have you seen the one about the gal in the library where she's walking in the library and she has this beautiful Marie Osmond smile and she says that God has brought her peace and God has brought her joy and God has brought her contentment. And that she loves to read books about God including the Bible but there's also this other book about God that helps her understand the Bible better called the Book of Mormon.

And if you will call this toll free number, we will send you this book that will help you understand the Bible better and get the joy and the peace and the contentment that God wants to give you. Now if you didn't know any better, you would think that it was us on television making that commercial about the peace and the joy that God can give a life. But it isn't us. It's the Mormon Church. And these kinds of clips are showing all over America today on television stations, running on radio stations and the Mormon Church has quietly been doing more and more of this aimed at changing the mindset of America and the American public when it comes to who and what Mormons really are and their efforts have been incredibly successful. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if there were a lot of you here this morning who honestly feel that Mormons are fine Christian people and who really don't understand why I would imply anything different or what the big deal is all about. Now let me say this morning at the beginning that I believe that Mormons are some of the finest Americans that exist.

And I believe that. They're devoted to morals. They're devoted to decency.

They're devoted to clean living and family values. When we lived in McLean before we lived where we live now, we had two neighbors in the little cul-de-sac where we lived. Two families that were Mormons. And I have to tell you friends, they were two of the finest families. They were two of the finest neighbors that we have ever had. Utah, for example, has just passed the most conservative abortion bill in America thanks in part to Mormon influence on its legislature and I thank God for them doing that.

I just pray it will survive the courts. Mormons are fine people. But in spite of all that, the question still remains, are Mormonism and Biblical Christianity the same?

That's the question we want to answer. We're not talking about whether Mormons are nice people. They are.

We all agree on that. We're talking about whether or not Mormonism and Biblical Christianity are the same. Do they worship the same God? Do they exalt the same Christ? Do they present the same way of salvation? Do they preach the same gospel?

You say, Lon, is that really all that important? I mean, if Mormons support the family, if they oppose abortion, if they espouse all of the kinds of Christian values, if they talk about God and Jesus and even sing the Hallelujah chorus, I mean, isn't that good enough? The answer is no. It isn't.

Even though there is all this outward similarity, the real issue is this. Are Mormons telling people how to be saved correctly? You see, you can support the family. You cannot drink, not smoke. You can oppose abortion. You can be a fine American and go straight to hell when you die. If you haven't been taught the true gospel, if you haven't been taught the true plan of salvation that God created, if you've been taught a counterfeit, you can be a nice person and a great American and go straight to hell. And that's why the apostle Paul, right here in Galatians 1, I want you to look, verse 8, said this. He said, But even if an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel that is contrary to that which we preach to you, let him be accursed. Paul said, I don't care how nice he is, I don't care how many miracles he does, I don't care whether he's an angel from heaven with the little wings and the halo, if he preaches a different gospel to you, a different way of being saved to you than we preached, God will curse him.

And sadly, God will curse everyone who follows him, even though they may be poor, misguided people. And so the issues are very, very serious. And this is the real issue that we have to confront with the Mormon church. And so this morning I want to explain to you some Mormon beliefs and then you decide, we'll decide together if Mormonism is really biblical Christianity or is it another gospel?

Let's talk about what Mormons believe. But before we do that, let's talk about how Mormonism began. The founder of Mormonism was Joseph Smith. He founded it in 1820.

He was born in 1805. He was 15 years old when he founded Mormonism. Joseph Smith had gone out into the woods to pray because he was confused about what church he should join. And so he went out into the woods to pray and asked God what church he should join. He said that while he was in the woods, God appeared to him.

He had a vision. And God told him that he should not join any established church, that every single established church was corrupt, that every single established church was an abomination to God. In fact, God told Joseph Smith that the true church, the real church, the authentic church had actually disappeared right after the demise of the apostles and that for 18 centuries every church that had existed was an abomination to God and that God was calling upon him, Joseph Smith, to reestablish the true, pure, authentic church that had been gone for 18 centuries, God was calling him to restore it. And so Mormonism began with the notion that between 100 A.D. and 1820 A.D. no one had ever preached the true gospel, no church that had ever existed that was pleasing to God, all churches were perverted, all Christian theology was an abomination to God and that the Mormon Church is the restored, true, pure church of God that had been absent for 18 centuries but God was restoring. That's how the Mormon Church began. Now what do the Mormons believe? Well, first of all, the Mormons believed that God was once a human being, a man, just like you and I are, that God the Father in Mormonism was once a man who achieved Godhood by his deeds here on earth just like you and I can also achieve Godhood.

Listen to the Mormons on the subject and I quote Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism. He said and I quote, God was once as we now are and is an exalted man and sits enthroned in yonder heavens. God was once a man who dwelt here on earth the same as Jesus Christ did and you have got to learn how to be God's yourself the same as all gods have done before you.

End of quote. Joseph Smith also went on to say as man is and I'm quoting, God was. As God is, man may become. How's that for starters?

Now let me give you some more. This Father God of Mormonism has a whole retinue of heavenly wives with whom he is procreating even as we speak. And the result of these procreations are myriads of spirit babies. And these spirit babies live up in heaven until they are dispatched to earth to enter into a body coming out of a woman's womb and take up residence therefore on the earth. And once they get here, they begin their trek towards eventual Godhood. Now you were one of these spiritual babies according to Mormonism. Your purpose here on earth is two things. Number one, to join the Mormon church.

And number two, to begin earning your way to Godhood with all of its commensurate rights and privileges. And Mormons will look you right in the eyeballs and tell you that this is exactly what they believe. How about Jesus Christ, second of all? Who do the Mormons say he is? Jesus Christ, the Mormons say, was the very first spirit baby that Father God spawned. And that when Jesus came to earth, his body was not created by a virgin birth but rather by a sexual union between Mary and Father God. They also teach that the second spirit baby ever made, Jesus his brother, was Lucifer, the devil.

And that the third spirit baby ever made was the Holy Spirit, who right now is living in heaven, going around as a spirit baby, doing Father God's will, but one of these days the Holy Spirit will get a body of his own and get a chance to work his way up to being God just like everybody else gets the chance to do that. Third, what do Mormons believe about salvation? I mean if we're all supposed to be working our way up to Godhead, then how can this goal be achieved? What do the Mormons teach on that? Well they teach that salvation, achieving Godhood, is achieved by a combination of two things. Number one, joining the Mormon Church and following all of its rules and regulations and number two, believing in Jesus Christ as part of that. Basically, Mormonism is a system of salvation that is based upon human works, upon human effort. You earn your way to being a God.

And the Mormons have a list of rules a mile long that you have to keep in order to get to be a God, including a mandatory two-year mission service by every one of their young men. And you see these people around, right? They ride bicycles, they wear black trousers, they wear white shirts, they wear nice ties, and they have little badges on that say elder so-and-so. They go to McDonald's, they're everywhere.

You see them. Why do they do that? Do they do that because these people have such a tremendous fervor for Mormonism that they can't wait to get out and tell people? Well some of them do, but you need to know that every male must go through this missionary service if he has any chance at all of becoming a God.

That's why they all do it. Now what do you achieve if you get to be a God in Mormonism? Well Mormons teach that there are three heavens. There is a lower heaven that unbelievers like us get to go to. There is a middle heaven that unworthy Mormons get to go to. So if you're a Mormon and you really blow at you, at least get to the second heaven.

Then there is the third in the top heaven called the celestial heaven. Worthy Mormons get to go there. And in the celestial heaven Mormon men who are now gods, don't forget that, Mormon men who are now gods are each given their own planet.

You ready for this? They're each given their own planet just like Father God was given this planet. And this Mormon god along with his eternal wife. You get your eternal wife by marrying a woman in the secret temple rites of the Mormon church. You go into the Mormon temple like the one over in Kensington. You marry your eternal wife in a secret ceremony in there. And then your eternal wife, even though you may have other wives, we'll talk about that in a minute, you only have one eternal wife. You and your eternal wife get a planet that you now have the privilege of populating. And the eternal wife of this Mormon god has the privilege of spending all of eternity pregnant with spirit babies.

Isn't that worth working for? Mormonism teaches that the highest goal for a Mormon woman is not to be a doctor, a lawyer, a faithful mother here on earth, but the highest goal for a Mormon woman is to get her own planet that she can populate by being eternally pregnant with spirit babies. Now, there's a couple of other interesting wrinkles in Mormon teaching. The practice of polygamy, for example, that you can have more than one wife as a man. This was endorsed by Joseph Smith.

It was pronounced as prophecy from directly from God. It was not only endorsed by Joseph Smith, but it was practiced by Joseph Smith. He had one eternal wife, but he had many others. And he taught that Mormon men can have one eternal wife, but they can have many others. And I don't know why this became a part of Mormonism. The only thing I can guess is that historical records show that Joseph Smith was an adulterer.

There is no doubt about that. It is historically recorded. And the only thing I can figure out in my mind is that he came up with this doctrine of polygamy in order to justify his desire for multiple women. There's another interesting wrinkle in Mormonism, and that is the preeminence of Joseph Smith, the founder. To get into the highest heaven, the celestial heaven, every person has to pass through a tribunal made up of three people, Father God, Jesus Christ, and guess who? Joseph Smith.

That's right. Brigham Young, Joseph Smith's successor, wrote and said this, and I quote, No man or woman will ever get into the celestial kingdom without the consent of Joseph Smith. Every man and woman must have the certificate of Joseph Smith as a passport to their entrance into the mansions where God and Christ are. I cannot even go to heaven without Smith's consent.

He reigns there as supreme. End of quote. And listen to this. Brigham Young went on to say, If you will believe in your hearts and confess with your mouth, sounds like Romans 10, doesn't it? If you will believe in your heart and confess with your mouth, listen, that Jesus is the Christ, that Joseph was his prophet, and that Brigham is his successor, you shall be saved.

End of quote. The third and last interesting wrinkle I'll tell you about is baptism for the dead. Mormonism teaches that dead people can be converted to Mormonism if somebody on the earth will be baptized on their behalf. And this explains the Mormon's obsession with genealogical records because if you can find and locate all your dead relatives and then go be baptized for them, they can all become Mormons and go to heaven.

In fact, you don't even have to be baptized for a relative or a friend. You can be baptized for anybody whose name you know and they can become Mormons even though they've been dead for centuries. Now this may sound to us a little silly, but to the Mormons, they are deadly serious about this. Recently, the Mormon Church announced, this is no hoax now, I'm telling you the truth, I've got it in print if any of you want to see it. Recently, the Mormon Church announced that an elderly member of the Mormon Church, a man, had just received his one millionth baptism for dead people.

Now think of that. He's been baptized a million times for dead people. And these people baptized by immersion, we're talking serious, trivial problem. A million baptisms? And a month later, he had completed 4,000 more in one month. The article said, a church official said in the article, he's still going strong. Well, that's good because he's got a long way to go. Mormon officials estimate that 150 billion dead people remain for living Mormons to save by being baptized for them. So, God bless him, he's got to keep going strong for a long time.

There's a lot left to do. Baptizing for the dead. Now you say, Lon, where do the Mormons get all this stuff?

I mean, where do they get this from? Well, the truth source for the Mormons is four books. Four books. The first one is the Bible.

You say, well, that's good, right? Well, listen to what they say about the Bible. And I quote, they say, we believe the Bible to be the word of God, say, so far so good, yep, it's not done yet, in so far as it is translated correctly, end of quote.

And how correctly is it translated? Well, the Book of Mormon claims that a correct translation of the Bible is impossible. Because it's been so corrupted by 18 centuries of the corrupt church, you know, that the church over 18 centuries has so corrupted the Bible that you cannot get an accurate translation anymore of the Bible. And therefore, Mormonism's real truth sources become the other three books, because you can't trust the Bible. And they are, number one, the Book of Mormon, quoting again, we consider the Book of Mormon to be inspired, end of quote. And the Book of Mormon is an account, supposedly, of the original inhabitants of America from 600 B.C.

to 400 A.D., to whom Christ appeared after his resurrection, supposedly. Then there is the second book that they revere called Doctrines and Covenants. It records 139 revelations from God given to Joseph Smith and details all the distinctive doctrines of Mormonism.

And finally, the book called The Pearl of Great Price, which is a collection of various works that includes the Articles of the Faith, which is kind of the constitution of the Mormon Church. Now, in addition to this, the Mormon Church holds to the doctrine of the living prophet, meaning that the president of the Mormon Church, the Mormons believe, is constantly receiving new revelation from God that becomes immediate, unchallenged truth for every Mormon in the world as soon as this man receives it. Now, this doctrine has brought great embarrassment to the Mormon Church over the years, because Joseph Smith, who was the first living prophet of the Mormon Church, who received prophecies from God, revelations from God, very frankly, some of his infallible revelations have been pretty tough for the rest of us to swallow. Like, for example, Smith endorsed polygamy as being desirable, but that was so repulsive to the American people that another living prophet in 1890 received another revelation from God saying that the first revelation that had been given to Joseph Smith about polygamy was now wrong and it needed to be revealed.

So they repealed it, even though the practice still goes on. Joseph Smith also, as a living prophet, prophesied that the Jews would never return to their land until they all received Christ as their savior, and that the Temple of Zion would not be rebuilt in Jerusalem at all, but that the temple would be rebuilt, you ready, in Jackson County, Missouri. Now, don't everybody go rush out to buy property there right away. But that's where the temple's supposedly going to be rebuilt. Now, today, we see the Jews back in their land. They have not accepted Christ. This is an embarrassing prophecy supposedly that came from an infallible prophet. Third and finally, Smith gave prophecies that were outright racist. Racist. The Book of Mormon prohibited any black person from becoming a Mormon. If you were black, you could not become a Mormon. In fact, the Book of Mormon is full of racial slurs that are repugnant and so reprehensible that I decided I didn't want to tell you about them.

But you think Jimmy the Greek stuck his foot in his mouth big time. Friends, you ain't seen nothing until you read what the Book of Mormon has to say about black folks. And that teaching stood in the Mormon Church for over a hundred years until in June of 1978, in response to a worldwide outcry, public outcry, that came as a result of the civil rights movement. In 1978, then living prophet, Spencer Kimball, repealed this supposedly infallible revelation that God had given Joseph Smith saying that he, Kimball, had been given a new revelation from God that black people were now equal to white people and could become faithful members of the Mormon Church. Isn't this interesting?

I guess even the civil rights movement changed God's mind about black people. Come on. Come on. I mean, how blind do these people think we are?

Pretty blind. You know, the average Mormon missionary leads nine people to Mormonism a year. And there are over 40,000, multiply that out, missionaries on the field at any given moment averaging nine converts a year. Did you average nine converts last year, friends, to biblical Christianity?

Huh? How many of you led nine people to Christ last year? Total membership in the Mormon Church, 7.3 million people and climbing rapidly. You know, having studied the personal character of the founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, frankly, I don't see how Mormons can revere him as they do when the historical record reads the way it does. Joseph Smith was involved in the occult. He was involved in demonic practices of glass looking, which is similar to crystal ball looking and seance practicing.

In fact, he used this means to write the Book of Mormons. He would look into his little glass ball. He would cover his face.

The record witnesses say this. He would look into his little glass ball and then he would come up from it and he would write. Then he would go back into his little glass ball. He would come up and he would write.

And that's how he wrote the Book of Mormon. In fact, in 1826 in New York, he was convicted, you can get the court records if you want, of fraud and lying because he would go around bilking people out of huge sums of money telling them that if they would pay him up front, he would look into his little crystal ball and find hidden buried treasure for them. He never found it. He was convicted of fraud in the courts of New York State. He died in a mob killing in Carthage, Illinois. He did not die as a saint. He died in jail when a mob came to the jail, opened the jail, decided they wanted to kill him. But before he died, he personally shot to death a number of the mob before they were able to kill him and his brother.

The date was 1844. Mormon records tell us that he shot these people to death before they finally killed him. Moreover, I don't see how Mormons can accept the Book of Mormon when it is as unsubstantiated as it is. You know, last week, and I did this on purpose, we sent a whole message talking from the Book of Genesis about the patriarchs and how archaeology had confirmed one fact after another fact after another fact that the Bible records about the patriarchs.

You remember if you were here, we did that. Dear friends, do you know that the Mormons reject as corrupt the Bible in favor of a truth source, the Book of Mormon, that is absolutely unsubstantiated when it comes to its historical accuracy? The Book of Mormon gives detailed references to cities, to rivers, to mountains that all supposedly existed here in America between the years of 600 B.C.

and 400 A.D. There is absolutely no archaeological or historical confirmation at all, none. There has never been one river found, one city found, one mountain found that the Book of Mormon names. In fact, the Smithsonian Institution here in Washington not too long ago put out a letter because so many people were writing them and asking them and saying, gee, with all of the research you do, you must have found some indication that the Book of Mormon is right, some archaeological confirmation. The Smithsonian Institution put out a letter saying, categorically, that nothing has ever been found that would substantiate the historical accuracy of the Book of Mormon. And yet people follow this when the Bible is substantiated with thousands of historical records and they brand it as corrupt. Now I think you're getting the idea by now that Mormonism is a far cry from Christianity, are you? You getting that idea? He said, well, Lon, if that's true, why is Mormonism growing the way it is?

I have two suggestions to give you. Number one, Mormon missionaries are taught to hide the real truth until you're well down the road with them. When I was living in Greenbelt, Maryland, it was in the late 70s, well actually this was in the mid 70s, and I had two roommates, there were three of us going to seminary at the time, and one day we got a knock on the door. It was two Mormon missionaries. My roommate, who was a seminary student, he was ahead of me, I was a beginning seminary student, he was about ready to graduate, fine Christian, invited him in. I got really upset with that, because you know it says in John's letter, don't even invite those people into your house if they're not preaching the right gospel, and I got real upset with him.

But he invited them in and played dumb. Didn't tell them he was a seminary student, just told them that he worked for Safeway, which he did, and they began. And they spent an hour there telling him all about Mormonism, and when they left they said, could we come back and see you? And he said, yes, please do. And when they left, man, I read this guy the riot act, I really did.

And he said to me, Lon, don't you understand? What I want to see, what I want to find out is how long it's going to take these guys to start getting around to what Mormonism's all about. Did you notice, he said, Lon, they sat here for an hour and every single thing they said squared with the Bible. If I didn't know any better, if I was an untrained nominal Christian, I would have listened to every single thing they said, and when they walked out I would have said, good grief, this is just what they taught me in Sunday school. They came back a second time. The second time, absolutely nothing of Mormon doctrine came up.

It was the third time they visited that a little bit of this began to creep out. And finally my roommate said to them, you know, you left me this copy of the Book of Mormon, I've been doing some reading in it. They said, oh, that's great, that's great. He said, well, I read in here that, and he started listing them out, that God is a man, that he has spirit babies, that there was no virgin birth, that you baptized for the dead, that there's three heavens and I can become a god. He said, is that all right? And they said, oh, yes, it is. You've really done a good job understanding and digesting the Book of Mormon. And then my friend looked at them and he said, I've listened to you now for two and a half hours.

I want you to listen to me. You gentlemen are preaching heresy. And man, he took it to them.

But you know what? If he hadn't have brought all those things up the third time, I don't know how many times they would have visited before they began telling some of this stuff. Dear friends, the reason so many people are following Mormonism is because a lot of people are duped into following what they think is just another brand of what they were taught in Sunday school. And it isn't. The second reason I feel that Mormonism is growing so quickly is that Mormons concentrate on meeting people's felt needs.

Friendship, acceptance, belonging, personal care in an impersonal world, family activities, youth retreats. And they do such a good job that frankly a lot of people don't really care what their doctrine is. They're just so happy to find a group of people who love them and are friendly and are nice to them that they don't really care. Like our drama demonstrated this morning. They don't really understand theology anyway but all they know is these are a nice bunch of folks. So they follow them. Let's draw some conclusions.

Some so-whats. My so-what this morning is no matter how hard Mormons try to package themselves to look just like another brand of Christianity, no matter how close they try to approximate Christian terminology so as to sound Christian to mainstream America, it must be said categorically for everyone to hear Mormonism is not Christianity. A true Mormon is not a true biblical Christian. Mormonism is another gospel. Mormonism is another gospel that leads people away from God's true plan of salvation and towards eternal ruin. Mormonism is a C-U-L-T. That's what it is.

A C-U-L-T. And it is an unacceptable alternative to biblical Christianity because in direct disagreement with Mormonism biblical Christianity teaches number one that God is not a man nor has He ever been a man. Numbers chapter 23 verse 19 says God is not a man. And in Isaiah 43 and 44 and 45 God says over and over and over again, I am God. There is no one like me. No one has ever been like me.

No one will ever be like me. I am not a man. I am lifted up way above anything a man is or could ever have been. Second of all, God is eternally existent. He is the creator God.

He is uncreated. He is not a man who worked himself up to being a God. He has been eternally God and will always be eternally God.

Psalm 90 before the mountains were born or before you did give birth to the earth and the world from everlasting to everlasting you are God. God was never a man. Moreover Jesus Christ the Bible teaches was not God's first spirit baby but He is God Himself born of a virgin. John chapter 1 says in the beginning was the word Jesus Christ and the word was with God and the word was God. Jesus claimed to be God. His resurrection proves it. He's not a spirit baby friends and the spirit of God is not a spirit baby.

He is the third person in the Trinity. That's what the Bible teaches. Moreover salvation does not involve getting a planet to populate but salvation involves having your sins forgiven so that you can spend eternity in the presence of a holy God worshipping Him, serving Him, adoring Him. Revelation chapter 4 presents a picture of heaven where there is constant and ongoing adoring worship of God. You're not going to spend eternity populating planets if you're saved. You're going to spend eternity serving and loving the living God. And the way of obtaining salvation that the Bible knows about is not through belonging to the Mormon Church or any other church but by trusting the shed blood of Jesus Christ plus nothing as payment for our sin in the sight of a holy God. I want you to flip over from Galatians to the next book, the book of Ephesians chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2 verse 8. And there it says that by grace, by grace, God's grace we have been saved. Grace means something that God does for us that we don't deserve. God saved us by His grace through as a result of in response to our faith, look at verse 9, not by works. Not by works.

Works had nothing to do with it. That's why in Titus chapter 3 Paul says not by works of righteousness which we have done but by His own mercy God saved us. The only way to be saved, dear friends, the only plan God ever created was for us first of all to admit our personal sin before a holy God. Second, to confess our need of forgiveness.

Third, to recognize our inability to save ourselves and fourth, to accept as a free gift from God what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross and to put all of our trust, all of our weight on that. That's how you get saved. Salvation is not Jesus Christ plus Joseph Smith. It's not Jesus Christ plus eternal weddings. It's not Jesus Christ plus the Mormon Church. It's not Jesus Christ plus two years of missionary service. It's not Jesus Christ plus any kind of human effort.

It's Jesus Christ and Him alone as the song says my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness on Christ the solid rock I stand all of the ground, all of the ground is sinking sand. The Mormon Church is sinking sand. By the definition of the eternal word of God the Mormon Church is sinking sand and those poor people who stand on it are going to sink. And that brings me to my last point this morning and that is that God loves Mormons.

I hope you believe that. God loves those Mormon missionaries that ride around and show up at your house. God loves the Mormons who go and get married eternally. God loves the polygamists.

God loves even the living prophets in Salt Lake City. These people matter to God, to the true biblical God even though their doctrine is all wrong biblically. These people still matter to God dear friends. Their eyes are blinded. They've lost their way. They've been deceived.

That's true. They're fine people. They are fine people with the zeal that often puts to shame those of us who claim to know the real God. And how it must break God's heart to see these people so terribly misled, so terribly deceived, trying to prove themselves worthy, trying to achieve God had so much wasted energy, so much wasted useless striving all for something that God wants to give them free of charge if they only knew it. And we need to tell Mormons these truths because God loves those people. And dear friends, not only do these people matter to God, but every one of us here matter to God as well.

God loves us. So I'd like to end this morning by asking you, you may not be a Mormon, but are you on sinking sand this morning? What I mean by that is, is there anybody here who's trusting Christ plus something to get them into heaven? Christ plus their church membership? Christ plus their good deeds? Christ plus sacraments? Christ plus baptism?

Christ plus a Jewish birth or a Catholic birth? Christ plus the rosary? Christ plus some saint? Christ plus their Sunday school attendance? Christ plus what they put in the offering plate? Is anybody here trusting Christ plus something? Friends, salvation is Christ plus nothing. God offers to save us and forgive our sin free of charge as a gift of His grace. All we have to do is admit our need and reach out and take God's remedy. And God invites not only Mormons to do this, God invites every one of us to make sure we've done it.

And I sure hope you have because all other ground, all other ground is sinking sand. Let's stand together for closing prayer. Let's bow. Lord thank you for teaching us this morning. We need to be taught on these subjects. And I pray in these next few weeks as we talk about others of these world religions that you would make us equipped to go out into this world and be used by God to point people to the true salvation, the true Gospel and what it really means to know the true Christ. Lord, dispatch us this week as your missionaries into a world that needs you so desperately. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.