Oneness Pentecostals, and Mormons, and Jehovah’s Witnesses, Oh My!!

Well, today is Thursday, July the 20th. My name is Jon Galantis, and I'm here with Dr. Abadan Shah. You're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abadan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can find us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com, or if you have a question for Dr. Shah, anything you'd like to write in and suggest that we talk about here on the show, send us a text at 252-582-5028. You can also email us at contact at ClearviewTodayShow.com. You can help us keep the conversation going by supporting the show. You can share it online, leave us a good review on iTunes or Spotify.

Absolutely nothing less than five stars. We are going to leave a link in the description of this podcast so you can do just that. And Dr. Shah, today's verse of the day is coming to us from the gospel of John. In chapter six and verse 29, Jesus answered and said to them, this is the work of God that you believe in him who he sent. Well, this passage is given because people were searching after him, looking for him and he would go away.

And Jesus said to them, this is in verse 26, kind of get in the context of this passage. He said, most assuredly I say to you, you seek me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. It means you all are just a hungry bunch.

You want free food. That's the lunch bunch, the Piggly Wiggly type, Piggly Wiggly Christians going around because he's meeting their immediate needs. And if we follow this guy and we just hang around him, he'll feed us. He'll just keep feeding us, the walking, talking cafeteria.

It's like seeing Jesus for the most absolute lowest commons and not like the base baseline of who he is and not wanting to go any deeper, any further. And then in verse 35, he said to them, I am the bread of life. It means I'm doing all this so you will get the real meaning behind this, which is I can feed you with food. He says, he who comes to me shall never hunger. And he who believes in me shall never thirst. The whole point is this.

Don't seek after sign, seek after the savior. Amen to that. I had someone write into the show.

They wanted to know Dr. Shah. This is Jackie M who wrote in, what's one thing that you would eliminate from your day to day routine to make life a little easier? Wow. That's a great, I know. I was thinking about it on the way in this morning.

What's one thing I would eliminate from my day to day routine to make life a little easier? Gosh. I mean, I don't know.

I would say shower. Yeah. Yeah.

If you could just wake up, I would say even sleep, like just use that extra eight hours to work. Yeah. I mean, I feel like when I'm getting ready, I get phone calls. I'm listening to this. I'm making points and notes. If I could just eliminate that whole getting ready thing.

Yeah. It's like, it's like you, you wake up and your mind, like, I don't know if your mind is like this, but my mind just kicks into high gear. It starts rolling. I'm like, okay, what are the things that are happening today? What's happening tomorrow?

What do I need to prepare for? And then you have to stop thinking about it to do other stuff like shower, put on deodorant, put on clothes, get ready. Yeah.

I know the same here. Sometimes I'm like, I can do all this in like 15 minutes, but because I'm doing all the other things because these ideas are coming to me. So I'm writing them down phone calls. I need to make it.

I need to send that text out to that person. I need to, I need to answer this email because I know I've been deferring it, but today's the day it needs to be done. So that becomes like an hour and 10 minutes, but it's not because I'm taking an hour and 10 minutes to brush my hair. I'm trying to get this stuff out of my teeth.

Like Rapunzel, they're brushing my hair for brushing my teeth off my gums. No, it's simply because I'm thinking about this. Yeah, I gotta do that. Oh wait. Okay. Let me finish this right now.

Let me write this down. Yeah. It's like, you're sitting there, you got two shirts and you just hold them up for like an hour and a half. Someone leaves, goes to the gym, come back.

You're still looking at my shirt. No, it's just, yeah, that's what I would do. I think I agree. The morning routine, like just the whole getting ready. Like if I could wake up out of bed and just go, yeah, I'll be ready. Like I'm ready to go.

I look great. Let's do it. Yeah, I would.

I would agree. Well, write in, let us know what's one thing that happens in your day to day routine that you would eliminate just to make life a little bit easier. We're going to start the show in just a moment. We're continuing our discussion from yesterday. If you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, make sure you text us at two five two five eight two five zero two eight.

Or you can always visit us online at clearviewtodayshow.com. We'll be right back after this. You can have a good finish even with a bad start, and that's where this book comes in.

No matter who you are or where you are in life, you're going to get stuck. Instead of going out and buying some gadget or some planner, like I know I've done several times, 30 days encourages you to find your fresh start in God's word. Life doesn't have a reset button, but our God is a God who does new things. His mercies are new every day, which means every day is a new chance for you to start over. You can grab 30 days to a new beginning on amazon.com. We're going to leave a link in the description box below, and if you already have the book, let us know what you think about it.

That's right. Send us a text, two five two five eight two five zero two eight. Share what God has done in your life through this devotional. Hey, maybe we'll even read your story on the air. Ellie, you ready to get back to the show?

Let's do it. Welcome back to Clearview Today with Dr. Abidan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can find us online at Clearviewtodayshow.com or if you have a question for Dr. Shah, any suggestions for future topics you want us to talk about here on the show, send us a text, two five two five eight two five zero two eight. You can email us at contact at Clearviewtodayshow.com. And listen, if today's your first time ever tuning into the Clearview Today Show, we want to let you know exactly who's talking to you today. Dr. Abidan Shah is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University and author, full time pastor and the host of Today's Show.

You can find all of his work on his website. That's AbidanShah.com. Dr. Shah, I have to say yesterday's conversation, we ran out of time a little bit, but I'm eager to jump back into it because I think this is something that people have been dying to hear for a long time. Yes. Because we've started to see this thing and I've seen it personally in the last few months, just by some activity that's been going on online, that people really either don't hold doctrine to be very important or they have a very, very, very false view of what the doctrine of Christianity actually is. So we actually started talking yesterday about two branches, three branches actually of, I'm putting this in air quotes for the radio audience, of Christianity that have a very, very wild idea of what Christian doctrine is. They look very similar.

The people even look like us, but don't have to examine them much and you realize we are miles apart. We are in a whole different category. And so we're talking about Mormonism, we're talking about Jehovah's Witness and we're focusing on the importance of sound doctrine. But now let's look at the Mormon writings and subsequently let's focus on the Jehovah's Witness writings as well.

So do you want to begin? Yes. So they say they believe the Bible, but according to their article of faith, number eight, the latter day saints believe, and I'm putting this in quotes, believe the book of Mormon to be the word of God. So the book of Mormon is the word of God in addition to the Bible or instead of the Bible? In addition to the Bible.

But some parts of the Bible are corrupt according to them? Well, they will say this in the history of the church, volume 4, 461, it is claimed that Joseph Smith called it, I'm talking about the book of Mormon, he called it the most correct of any book on the earth. Who is Joseph Smith? Because a lot of people know they connect him with Mormonism, but even I'm not sure exactly what he, if he's he the founder, is he just the prophet or whatever? Well, you got to go back in time and let's go back to like 1820s and he's about a 14 year old boy in upstate New York, prayed that God would show him which church to join.

You know, there was a, there was a Baptist, the Methodist, the Presbyterians, God show me. And as he prayed in a nearby Grove, an overpowering force bound his body and tongue. And that itself doesn't sound good to me. And thick darkness came upon him so that he could not speak. Now I know in the Bible when the angels came to God's people or the angel of the Lord came over God's people, they, they became terrified that we see that. I mean, I see that in Isaiah, we see that in with Mary. So yeah, of course, but it's not a dark feeling, right? It's not even a darkness. It's about, wow, I'm in the presence of the holy God, right?

It's not, it's not oppression. That's a very good way of saying that no oppression there, but that he could not speak. And just when he thought he was going to die, a pillar of fire came down from heaven and he saw the father and the son as separate men, but just alike standing before him separate. And the son told him not to join any church, but wait on further revelation.

And few years later, the angel Moroni appeared to him in 1823 and promised him that he would find a book or a book of gold plates, which he claimed to find in some nearby Hill in 1827. And the book was supposedly in reformed Egyptian. We, nobody knows what reformed Egyptian is.

I was going to say, what is that? I've been to Egypt. I've studied the history of Egypt. I'm not an expert on Egyptology by any stretch, but there is no such thing as reformed Egyptian. You said it was supposedly supposedly in reformed Egypt. I was going to say, does that mean that nobody saw this book?

He, he didn't let anybody see it. He just said it's in J R R Tolkien style. He just made up a language. Okay.

So no one has known this language. And the book of Mormon was published in 1830. Wow.

I don't know what else to say like, wow. And the story in the book is about the coming of the Hebrews, mind you, the Hebrews to settle in the Americas. Yeah. This is, this is the part that I've heard that seems like odd that people believe this. So we're talking about the, uh, their life between sixth century BC. I've been talking about the exilic period until fifth century AD. This is what's described in the book.

Is there any historical evidence for this like in real life? No. So is he saying, is he saying that the native American, the people that we know as the native Americans are actually ancient Israelites? Right. He claims that Jesus came here to preach to them after his resurrection. Uh, those who received became the Nephites and those who rejected became the Lamanites, uh, who are the ancestors of native Americans. So sorry, native Americans. You guys were the bad guys. Yeah. You didn't listen.

It's truly so sorry. And there were a battle between the two groups and the Nephites were gone, but not before the plates of the recordings were buried by Moroni, the son of Mormon, the last Nephite general. So the word of God, the most correct thing that's ever existed was buried by an angel of God buried in hidden hidden. Yeah.

So, so God doesn't want to reveal himself to his people just to his, his one prophet. Right. And now we have to take his word for it because those plates are gone.

They're gone. Okay. And overall is written in kind of his pseudo translation. So it's made to sound like the King James version, but you can tell it's like, Oh, that's make-believe.

Like sometimes we joke it's like, thou shall not drink that coffee. Uh, but he made it sound like it was written back in the 1600s. I've never actually once read it. Is it even worth read? Like, like just as a Christian, is it even worth reading or is it no, no, nothing, nothing. Now there are people out there who are scholars who are apologist and they want to do this as a discipline.

They want to expose people to the truth. Okay. I get it. You have to do it, do it. But as a regular person, I won't recommend it. Is the Jehovah's, at least tell me the Jehovah's witness makes a little bit more sense.

No, it's not even a little bit. They also believe the Bible, but they use their own translation and they all claim that ours is corrupt. Of course you, yeah, you got to start there.

They believe that the watchtower society is the one and only channel which the Lord has used in dispensing that his truth continually since the beginning of the harvest period. And so this is a, these are articles that were written. This one was written in April the first, 1919. Well, that's kind of, that's kind of appropriate. I was going to say, which is what is April fool's day. Oh, there you go. So, so I, this Jehovah's witness Mormonism, at least I've heard of, I've, I've got some understanding Jehovah's witness. I'm completely, even today, I'm completely in the dark as of recording this podcast to going back to the 1800s. Keep in mind, these are all restorationist type movements. Restorationist movements are like trying to recover new Testament Christianity. And you know, there are some, even among our own ranks under the Christian umbrella who are restorationists and I'm not that fond of them.

I'll be honest with you. I'm okay with some form of restorationism, but when people become like, we need to go back to authentic new Testament, early church Christianity, what do you, what do you want? They're not trying to restore the text. They're trying to restore the culture, I guess. Okay.

Okay. And I'm sorry, I'm not into that, but what are you trying to recover trying to be like the first century church? Is that what the goal is for the Bible? Is that what God demands from us to become like the first century church or does he want us to follow Jesus Christ? Yeah. It's a very different goal between trying to get back to the original text, seeing what the authors actually wrote and then saying, we need to be just like these people who were in the first century.

Two different things. Like do we need to sell everything we have and put it together and, and have what the first century church had to do because of necessity? Is this where that how this like house church movement kind of comes in?

Do you think I, well, that's a whole different can of worms, but I'll go ahead and open it. Yeah. It's sort of like that.

Like I'm not for it. Yeah. We're going to do church in someone's home because that's how the early church is.

That feels man. The fellowship, man. I mean, that's where you bond and okay. Yeah. All right. So what do we do with all of these churches that were in the first several hundred years of Christianity that were growing in by leaps and bounds and people were getting saved and they were building the building?

Well, that's where the problem happened. Really? Because I see it, I see it as Christianity. Who was it that made Christianity legal? Constantine? Yeah.

Yeah. He makes Christianity legal. So now we get to gather in churches. Now it's a privilege to be able to come into the house of the Lord. But these people look at it as a corruption and I, I'm sorry, I disagree with you because you're trying to go back to an ideal state when there wasn't one. New Testament was not written so you would act like the first century church.

Now there are times in my sermons, I will say that to folks, you know, think about the first century church and how they were and on and on and on. Having said that, what do we do now? Put on togas? What do we do? Like, like go back to walking on Roman roads?

I mean, there are none around here. How do we go back to that? Oh, no, no, it's still like you are, but now you do in the home setting is what we're doing. So when Paul was giving offices for the church, pastors and deacons, right? Deacons are servant leaders. So what do we do with that? Which one do we go with that? The house church where everybody's just like gathering cause we just found out about Jesus Christ and we just 3000 got baptized saved. Or should we do the pastors and deacons? No, no, you got to do that too.

So which one is it? Should we stay with the first decade or the second decade? I mean, already there are, the things are changing in the first century. That goes back to what you said yesterday. Like these, these smaller issues, these smaller doctrinal issues are not really that small because they affect big primary issues.

Absolutely. Because you're playing house, you're playing church. So it was in the 19th century where a young man in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania named Charles Taze Russell, he began a class called the Millennial Dawn Bible study. Millennial Dawn sounds like a star, a Star Wars ship.

It sounds like the Millennial Dawn. Now get this, he was a Presbyterian, but found the doctrines of predestination, eternal damnation and the Trinity troublesome. Now I get the predestination. That may be one that some people may disagree with or, you know, have a different interpretation. I get it. I understand.

But eternal damnation and then the Trinity. Yeah. You got, you got some real issues. If you take big issues here. And he got some of his ideas from the Adventists, which it's a whole different, it's a topic for another day. I'll write that one in our margins. Cause that does sound like a good one. Again, just like these guys who are trying to play some decade of early Christianity, they're trying to play an era that was, you know, with the coming of Jesus Christ, all that has been done away with and you're playing that.

So I don't know what to say. So he got some of his ideas from the Adventists and others who taught on prophecy and he put them together in his literature, which became part of the Watchmen, Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. Okay. So Watchtower Bible, that's their text. That is their organized, that is their publishing arm. Okay. Okay.

Okay. That is their publishing arm. And that's where a lot of articles are published.

We don't know who wrote them, but that's what they use. So if I asked you, okay, what is it that the Jehovah's Witness fundamentally believe? What is their, what is their, like, I guess their core doctrine or what is it that they actually think?

What do they claim? So Charles Taze Russell, let's go back to him for a moment. He claimed that Christ's invisible second presence happened, get this, happened in 1874. His invisible second presence happened in 1874. Right.

And the harvesting period had ended in 1878. Does he mean like the second coming? Yeah. Yeah.

All that is done. Oh, we missed it. You missed it. Oh no. The end of the Gentiles time would take place in 1914.

That's what he predicted. Okay. So that year came and nothing happened.

It was claimed that the invisible occurrence had occurred, had happened and Satan was thrown out of heaven. Okay. Okay. So it, so he's living, he's saying this is revelation time is already, we're in it. And so now Jesus has begun his heavenly rule and starting in 1918 and the 144,000 were in the heavenly kingdom. Okay.

The 144,000 Jewish people who would be saved. That's what we believe. Right. Right. Right.

They will be, they would go in the power like the apostle Paul or Peter on the day of Pentecost or like, you know, some of those early sins, they will go with that kind of a power. That's still, still to come. Right. Right.

They believe that those were back then. Okay. Okay. But then Russell died in 1916 and the leadership was passed on to Joseph Franklin Rutherford.

Okay. And he was the one who solved the problem. You know, now you got to deal with 144,000 because their membership goes beyond that. So now how do you know? So the way he deals with that is by claiming that they are the anointed ones as opposed to the great crowd, which represents all the Jehovah's witnesses.

And this was a name chosen in 1931. So he, he claimed that they are, they were the anointed ones. The 144,000 back in that day. And this is not the same as the great crowd.

Which we believe, which or which, uh, they are believing. Okay. Because their numbers have risen past 144,000 up until 144,000 is not a big deal. I see.

I see. I see their numbers grew to beyond that. So they were like, wait a minute.

Am I in or are you out? It's kind of telling. Cause it's like, what did you think? Did you think that your organization was going to get to 144,000 and just stop? I guess they really did. Well, imagine that that one person overjoyed and he was like, Oh, wait a minute.

Does he go to heaven? I don't know. So they solved the problem or he solved the problem by, you know, doing this, this little trick of vocabulary. Wow. So they, so this is the writing that they still use today. Right. And the writings of Russell and Rutherford are not used anymore. Okay. Just to make that clear.

There are materials from the Watchtower Society to use Russell's and Rutherford's works. They're contradictory. They're outdated. And they're a mess.

I can imagine. You don't say. So other people have cleaned things up and this is part of the Watchtower, Watchmen.

I keep saying that Watchtower Society. And who writes them? I'm sure you're asking that question. Who's writing them? The leadership. But we don't know who. No, it's anonymous.

Ever since 1942, these writers are anonymous. So somebody is writing. Somebody.

Yes. Somebody is. And I can imagine somebody is getting paid very well to write them. And who is, who are they? Who is it? Is it somebody we know? Is it somebody, the denominational leaders?

No, nobody knows. So no, no accountability for what you write. As long as you're making sure our organization keeps growing and you don't contradict and you make us look better. So people like, okay, for us, we're like, okay, we, we, as Christians, and now I'm talking, we're talking about who wrote our religious book, who wrote each of these books. It's like, okay, well we can pinpoint who wrote them. And even in the case of Hebrews where we can't, we're at least very vehement about finding out who wrote them, getting the, getting the debate going, getting the conversation.

They're just like, I don't know. I don't know who writes it, but I believe it. And the problem lies in the fact that they claim that everybody claims, of course we do too, that the witness of the Holy Spirit is very important.

And Mormons claim that Jehovah's Witness also claimed that. So then we have to decide how do we know who is, who has the real Holy Spirit? But this is not a problem because instead, you know, because of our sinful minds and hearts, the Holy Spirit has to illumine and demonstrate the truth of God's word. Illumination means showing us the truth of God's word. Demonstration means testifying to us that it is the truth. The Holy Spirit doesn't give new evidence.

Okay. Let's just clear that up. I know some Christians do that kind of stuff. Some pastors even do it.

You know, folks, the Holy Spirit is laying on my heart, the Holy Spirit card. How can you even argue with me? Yeah.

It's like, it's like, I really want this and I see this vision and I want this to happen. So if I say that the Holy Spirit is leading me to do it now, if you said, well, I don't think he is. Well, who, how can you argue with me? You're not, you're arguing with big man. Yeah. It's an argument like from authority, I guess.

Yeah. So I'll never say that. What I will say is this is what the word of God says, and this is what the Holy Spirit is saying to us. He's verifying what he has said in his word, or he is confirming to our hearts.

I like that. It's a subtle difference, but it makes all the difference in the world. It's a big, big difference. When I say subtle difference in what you're actually saying, the words that you're using, it's subtle, but the meaning means something much more different because you're, you're affirming that the Holy Spirit, like you said, he's not going to give new evidence. He's not going to say, Hey, I know what the word says, but listen, here's what I want you to do.

He's not going to do that. Now we went to 2nd John to talk about this, but 1st John chapter 4, verse 1 says, Beloved, do not believe every spirit, small s, but test the spirits, small s, whether they are of God, because many false prophets, and I will put all these two and Islam have gone out into the world. By this, you know, the spirit capital S of God, every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God. And every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is a spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming and is now already in the world. Listen, this is how you know the spirit of God, because he will confirm in your heart that Jesus has come in the flesh. That's right.

That's right. When I'm reading scripture, when I'm studying theology, when I'm listening to music, when I'm listening to preaching, podcasts, YouTube, whatever, if that doesn't confirm to me that Jesus Christ became fully man, the fully God, second person that God had became fully man, if that does not confirm me, I need to change that church. I need to change that dial. I need to change that podcast, the YouTube, whatever it is, because it's not from God. That's the core. That's the core, absolute truth that we have to hold onto. And that's what the Holy Spirit is affirming.

Fully God became fully man. Wow. The Bible does it. We know that.

Yes. How about Mormon writing? Mormon writings don't do that. They deny the Trinity, right? Trinity is three persons united in purpose, not being.

That's what Mormons claim. Heavenly Father was a man at one time who was created by God, who was also created by another God. He passed through degrees of sanctification to become God. God was once a man like we are, and that humans can become God like God is now. This is what they believe. Jesus was a product of Heavenly Father and Mother. Heavenly Mother?

Yeah. They deny this, but Satan was a spirit brother of Jesus through another wife of the Heavenly Father. But they would say, no, we don't actually believe.

We don't say that, but yeah, you do. His sacrifice is not sufficient. Ordinances and covenants in the temple are necessary for Godhead in the celestial kingdom. Seriously. They say his sacrifice on the cross was not sufficient for that. Yeah. So why did he become fully man?

Why did he need to? Right. And there's so much more. How about Jehovah's Witness? Again, Trinity is denied. Jehovah is the only God. Jesus was created as Michael the Archangel. He became the son at baptism. Hence they read John 1.1, the old issue. Where he was a God. A God, which is grammatically and theologically a garbage.

That issue has been solved. They keep beating that old drum. And they believe that the Holy Spirit is God's active force. The Holy Spirit is a person. He's a person. Jesus died only for Adam's sin, not for all humanity.

No hell. Here's the thing. The Holy Spirit, when they're saying these things, also Islam, he's not fully God, fully man. That's the Antichrist. That's a deceiver. That's wrong. That's false. Done.

Case closed. It's imperative that we know this. And we have been spending so many days on correct doctrine. And we're going to spend more days on correct doctrine in the coming weeks, because it's very imperative that we know this.

And I'm learning this more than ever. The more we do these shows, the more that we talk about this kind of stuff, the more it strengthens my resolve. And our goal is that it will strengthen your resolve. Maybe you're listening to the show and you've never really thought about the doctrines that you believe in before. Maybe you've even heard some of these doctrines that the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses believe in, and you're thinking, man, I've seen points in that.

Maybe that lines up more closely with what I believe that I'm comfortable with. Know that this show is here as a resource for you. Our goal is to lead all people. This is not only for Clearview Today's show, but for Clearview Church as a whole, to lead all people into a life-changing, ever-growing relationship with Jesus Christ, who, like Dr. Shaw said, absolutely came in the flesh and for that specific purpose for dying on the cross for our sins. Dr. Shaw, thank you.

This was an amazing two-part episode. If you guys enjoyed today's topic or you have any suggestions for future topics, let us know. Send us a text at 252-582-5028. You can also visit us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com. You can support us financially on that same website as well. Thank you so much for all of you guys who have been giving and donating. We love you guys, and we'll see you tomorrow on Clearview Today.