How Can I Evangelize Mormon Evangelists?

The following is a pre-recorded version of CORE Christianity.

We'll be back live again on Monday. How can I evangelize my Mormon family members? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity. Well, hi, this is Bill Meyer, along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. You can call us with your question at 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. You can also post your question on our Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter accounts. You can watch Adriel on YouTube each day and send us a message through our YouTube channel, and of course you can always email us your question. Here's our email address. It's questionsatcorechristianity.com. First up today, let's go to Daniel in Jasonville, Indiana. Daniel, what's your question for Pastor Adriel?

My question is kind of two questions. First, do you believe that this vaccine has anything to do with the Bible being the mark of the beast? And if so, my son wants to get the vaccine, he's only 10, and would that be against him in the eyes of the father?

Hey Daniel, an important question, a sensitive one. I know this is something that a lot of people are arguing about right now, the mandates, the vaccine. With regard to the first question, do I think that this vaccine has anything to do with the mark of the beast?

The answer is no. I think that there's a lot of misinformation out there and frankly a lot of just bad Bible interpretation that has led some people to associate these two things, giving fear in the minds of many people. But we really just need to understand, when you look at Revelation chapter 13 where it's talking about the mark of the beast, it says that it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or on the forehead so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark. That is, the name of the beast or the number of its name.

This calls for wisdom. Let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man and his number is 666. The mark of the beast is this symbol in the book of Revelation for idolatry, associating with the kingdom of man first and foremost and the worship of that kingdom. To be marked with the mark of the beast is to be characterized by the idolatrous actions of the beast.

I don't think it's primarily like this microchip that's going to be put in somebody's forehead or in their arm or a vaccine, that kind of a thing. I think that totally misses the point of what John is trying to communicate in the book of Revelation. God is communicating to us in the book of Revelation. Actually, at the beginning of chapter 14 of the book of Revelation, John says, Then I looked, and behold, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb, and with Him 144,000, who had His name and His Father's name written on their foreheads. In other words, they're marked, not with the name of the beast, but with the name of Almighty God.

It's what we experience in baptism when God marks us with this sign and seal of His love of the gospel, baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. There's a lot of confusion, but no, the COVID-19 vaccine is not the mark of the beast. Then too, with regard to your son, who it sounds like wants to get the vaccine, is God going to hold that against him? I would say no. The answer to that question is absolutely not. You don't have to worry about it, at least as far as that's concerned. It's a decision where I think you need to consult the best of what medical professionals are saying. Maybe steer away from all the stuff that you're hearing on social media. I think that can be really unhelpful.

Talk to a doctor that you trust, Daniel, and get wisdom and insight there, but you don't have to worry about the mark of the beast being the COVID-19 vaccine. Thanks for your question. Hey, Daniel, thanks so much for your call. Thanks for listening to Core Christianity. One of the ways you can ask a question to Pastor Adriel is by leaving us a voicemail.

Our phone lines are open 24 hours a day, and we try to listen to our voicemail at least once a day. Here's the phone number to call. It's 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. Here's a question from one of our listeners. This is from Lisa. Hi, Pastor Adriel. I recently listened to one of your Core Christianity episodes where you mentioned witnessing to the Mormons in your life. My background, God, by his grace alone, brought me out of that religion and into knowledge and acceptance of the true gospel. But most of my extended family are devout Mormons, and I found that those who really believe they're earning any part of their salvation don't like being told otherwise.

And I get it, because long ago that was me too. But my question is, which Bible verses are at the top of your list when it comes to effectively witnessing to the Mormon people you love and with whom you want to share the truth? Because I pray that God can use me to maybe effectively witness to them, because I have insider knowledge of the Mormon doctrine and its numerous contradictions to Bible truth. So thank you for any advice and experience you can offer in this matter. Have a blessed day.

I really appreciate your program. Hey Lisa, I appreciate the encouragement, and I have friends and family members even who have been involved with Mormonism. I've mentioned before on the broadcast that I had a really close friend for some years who we would go back and forth. He actually, I met this guy because we were doing basically street evangelism at a park here in San Diego, and I was talking to an atheist, and this individual overheard us talking to the atheist. He liked the things we were saying, the arguments we were making, and so we struck up a conversation come to find that this guy was a Mormon, and we had a friendship for a few years before he died.

He was an older gentleman. We would go back and forth, Lisa, on Jesus, who Jesus is, what the Bible says about who Jesus is, and what the Mormon church says about who Jesus is. I would say that's where we want to focus the discussion is on Christ, on his work. John says in 1 John 4, beginning in verse 1 and following, he talks about the spirit of the antichrist and what the antichrist is doing today.

Ultimately, it's confusing people about the person and work of Jesus Christ. We know that the apostle Paul also said that there would be false Christs, false spirits that go out into the world. It's the same thing, again, that John says in 1 John 4. Paul told the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians chapter 11, I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me, for I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I'm afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted and you put up with it readily enough, indeed, I consider that I am not in the least inferior to these super apostles.

Even if I am unskilled in speaking, I am not so in knowledge. Indeed, in every way, we have made this plain to you in all things. What he's really doing is he's concerned for the people of Corinth that someone is going to come along and twist the gospel. It's what happened in the church of Galatia. They took the gospel and they started to twist it so that it wasn't a gospel anymore. And so I would say one thing you can do is you can say in your conversations, look, even in the New Testament, there was this pattern of the way in which the evil one would work. It wasn't just this sort of bold-faced lie. It was taking the truth of who Jesus is, of what the gospel is about, and twisting it. It was Satan disguising himself as an angel of light. And I think that's precisely what's happened with the Mormon religion.

Yeah, it might look really good. It looks like the light, if you will, in some sense. It's very moral, people helping each other out, but it's not rooted in doctrine, in the truth of God's word. Actually, one of the things that was really interesting to me in my conversations with this gentleman, who had been a Mormon his whole life, he was in his 80s when we became friends, Mormon his whole life, he said, if he'd come to some of the Bible studies we had at my house, and he told me, he said, we just don't do this in the Mormon church. We don't sit down in groups, opening up the scriptures, reading them, talking about theology. And that struck me, because I think that if Mormons would be more serious about studying the word of God, there would be a shift, a change, not just what their leaders tell them to believe about the scriptures, which I think is a twisting of the gospel, but truly studying the word of God, the scriptures, who Jesus is.

And so, having that conversation, I think is really good. Another thing that I've done also, Lisa, in my conversations is pointing to the words of the Lord Jesus to Peter, where he says in Matthew 16, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. And one of the key tenets of Mormonism, especially early on, Mormonism, when it first started, was sort of pitching itself as being the true faith over and above every other Christian denomination. They've all become corrupt. The gospel is not there. It's been extinguished. It was extinguished after the days of the apostles, and we are recovering the gospel, if you will. This is another revelation of Jesus Christ. And yet, Jesus himself said that that would never happen. He said that the gospel would never be extinguished, that the gates of hell would never prevail against the church, that he was going to continue to build his church. And so, there's this huge misunderstanding in Mormonism, where they say, look, there was a long period of time where the gates of hell did prevail against the church, and we're recovering everything.

Well, that contradicts what Jesus himself said. We need to go back to Christ's teaching and back to the teaching of the apostles. And let me just say, as you do that with your Mormon friends and family, Lisa, pray. Bathe every conversation that you have in prayer. Pray that the Lord would work mightily through his word when you're having these conversations, because we know that at the end of the day, there is a spiritual deception that is taking place, and we need the Holy Spirit to intervene. Thanks for giving us a call. Thanks for that, Adriel.

A tough situation when you're in a family that's following beliefs that are cultish or contrary to God's word, and yet think they're on the right track, and in reality, they're not. So, we'll be praying for her in that whole situation. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. We have a special resource that we are offering you this month. It's actually a historic book, a wonderful book on spiritual warfare by C.S.

Lewis. Yes, it's called The Screwtape Letters, and Bill, as you said, this is a classic work, and I think it's one of the best books on spiritual warfare, if not the best book on spiritual warfare, frankly. There's a lot of confusion out there today about the way in which the devil works, how he tries to deceive. And one of the things I love about this book is it's just so practical. It really, I think, has a number of insights in terms of thinking through how it is that the evil one tries to tempt believers today. One of the things that Lewis says in it is not so much what Satan puts into our minds, but what he keeps out, keeping out the truth of God's word, keeping us away from fellowship with the true and the living God. And so, I want you to get ahold of this resource.

It's yours for a donation of any amount over at corechristianity.com. C.S. Lewis's book, The Screwtape Letters. AMT Wonderful book to read with your kids, as a matter of fact. The Screwtape Letters from C.S.

Lewis. You can find out more by going to corechristianity.com forward slash offers, or you can call us for that or any one of our offers at 833-THE-CORE. Now, one of the ways you can submit a question to Adriel is through our Facebook page, our Core Christianity Facebook page. Hannah wrote to us and said this, I was reading Ecclesiastes and I'm troubled at how it depicts life. It almost seems to contradict the other parts of the Bible when it talks about so many things being vain and meaningless. Why is it in the Bible? C.S.

Lewis Yeah, great question. You know, Hannah, when I was in seminary, I took a class on the wisdom literature of the Bible. So, you know, Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes. And one of the big takeaways from that class, for me at least, was the importance of reading the wisdom literature in counterpoint. Now, what I mean by that is you look at a book like the book of Proverbs and everything seems so black and white.

If you do this, if you follow these steps, you're going to be blessed. You know, train up a child in the way that he should go and when he's older, he's not going to depart, right? It's very formulaic. And there's truth there. There is general truth there.

It's wisdom. But then you go to other books in the wisdom literature that seem to communicate something totally different, like the book of Job or the book of Ecclesiastes. And Job, for example, Job is a righteous guy. I mean, he does everything right.

At least that's what it seems like. And yet everything goes wrong in his life. And then in the book of Ecclesiastes, you have this almost lamentation about the vanity of life.

You do good, but you're still going to just die. And so what's the big deal? And so you have this sort of tension. It's not a contradiction, but it's this tension within the wisdom literature that I think helps us to understand wisdom even better. It helps us not to have an overly simplistic view of wisdom in life and in the Christian life, sort of like the view that Job's friends had.

Job, this is your problem. And sometimes Christians have this kind of idea today. If something bad is happening in your life, well, it's because of your failure to believe or to trust God more. Well, that's not always the case. And the wisdom literature helps us to see that.

And so there's no contradiction. And when we take all of the Bible together, and in particular, when we're reading the wisdom literature together, it really keeps us from making those overly simplistic observations or conclusions about the world and how the world works. And it helps us to wrestle with the difficulty of life, the challenges in life, the reality of sin, the reality of death, the reality of loss. And that's what you see a lot of in the book of Ecclesiastes. And so I think it's a wonderful book. It's a comforting book.

And I would encourage you to dig in. And as you read it, read it together with the rest of the wisdom literature as well. God bless. You know, Adriel, the next time you're feeling a little bit cocky about your preaching, just remember that you're just a vapor.

Yeah, I know. Well, yeah, the church reminds me of that all the time. So it's one of the most frequent feedbacks that I get. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. We would love to hear from you. If you have an email question for us, you can shoot us an email at questionsatcorechristianity.com. And of course, you can always leave your voicemail for us at 833-843-2673.

That's 833, the core. Here's a question from one of our listeners named Daniel. I was just calling my question. When it says wives submit to your husband, my wife and I have been struggling with that, whether it's like a domineering thing, or is it mutual submission, or is it the husband, the leader, and the wife, the follower? And then how does that leave room for, you know, the wife's opinion or what happens when one decides this way and the other decides the other way? Thanks.

Hey, Daniel, super practical question. So two passages in the New Testament that I think we can go to that really talk about this. First, obviously, is Ephesians chapter 5 verse 22. Wives submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. The second passage that I was thinking of is in the book of 1 Peter, in 1 Peter, chapter 3, verse 1. Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct. Do not let your adorning be external, the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry or the clothing that you wear, but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious. Two passages there about submission. Now, you said, is this a domineering kind of a thing? Heavy-handed, authoritarian, the husband who's just sort of coming in over the top and saying, you need to obey, you need to listen.

No, not at all. That's not what it is. And in fact, the husband is called to love as Christ loved. And what did that look like? It looked like service, self-giving, humility, laying down one's life for the good of the other. In this case, the husband laying down his life for the good of his wife. I mean, what could be more clear there in Ephesians chapter five?

And so it's not this domineering thing. And I know as a married man, that sometimes there's tension, there are questions, there are disagreements. But I think we lead not from the top down, but from a place of humility and a place of service. And there is, I think, a sort of mutual working together, but there are also, and this is what you see in Ephesians five in particular, these roles that God gives. We're called as husbands to lead our families, to be the head of the house and to care for our families. And sometimes there's conflict there, there might be disagreement.

Well, I don't think it's healthy or helpful to try to force things. That's where we work together. That's where we pray together, where we seek the face of the Lord humbly and get on the same page.

Now, I know that sometimes that doesn't always happen. In those situations, I think graciously, that's where there are opportunities for submission, where Paul could say and does say, well, I've submitted to your husband as to the Lord, as the church submits to Christ. And in that, the husband is not to be domineering, but gracious, loving, tender, kind, full of service. And so this is a real high calling for both husbands and for wives. And we definitely need a lot of help in this. I think we could all agree with that.

And so we pray and we exercise grace and forgiveness toward one another when we fail, which we will, looking to Jesus ultimately, who is the perfect example with how he loves the church and receiving the grace that he gives so that we might love each other as we're called to in marriage. You know, Adriel, whenever I get too domineering with my wife, she just reminds me that I'm a vaper. Yeah, I think this joke, Bill, of yours is going to last for a while.

I'm feeling it. People need to read Ecclesiastes. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez.

Here's a question we received from Yvonne. She says, I heard a teacher on the Internet that I listen to and respect say that our names were written down in the Lamb's Book of Life from the beginning of time. He said we have to go to Jesus for salvation. But I thought it was at that point that our names were written down. I hope he was saying that all we have to do is humbly come to Jesus and accept that gift. I do believe we didn't misunderstand him. I respect his teaching and listen to him often. There are differences as Christians that I can overlook, and if it's not a salvation issue, I'm happy to agree to disagree. But I'd like to know where it is in Scripture that our names make the book.

Thank you for all you do. Yeah. Well, you do have this language of a book of life, if you will, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. In the Old Testament, you see it in Exodus chapter 32, where Moses is pleading with the Lord. In the New Testament, you see it especially in the book of Revelation, and where specifically it talks about our names being written in the book of life from before the foundation of the world is in Revelation chapter 13, verse 8, and also Revelation chapter 17, verse 8.

Our names are there from, again, before the foundation of the world. Part of this is from the perspective of heaven, the Lord knows those who are his. Again, the book of Revelation is his imagery, a lot of it is imagery, and so I don't think that we're supposed to imagine that God has this literal book, and he's just writing everybody's name down in it, and then if we do bad, he erases that name out, and then maybe he'll add it back in again. No, it should be this encouragement, this comfort to the people of God, knowing that the Lord knows each of us by name. He knows us by name. He's marked us, he's placed us in his book, he's going to keep us, he's going to hold on to us, and that was the comfort that it would have been for the people in the book of Revelation who were suffering a great deal of persecution. The book of Revelation was written to Christians who were struggling because the world around them was condemning them and persecuting them, and so to know, for them to know, God knows my name. I belong to Jesus Christ by faith. He's written me in his book. I am enrolled in heaven. It would have been a huge comfort. It was a comfort to them, and friends, it can be a comfort to us as well. If you believe in Jesus Christ, if you have a relationship with him, your name is in the book of life. Join us next time as we explore the truth of God's Word together.