042 - God's Word finds Earl and Karla

You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?

Is there something here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink. Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages. Welcome to More Than Ink. Hey, let me read a verse to you.

Here it goes. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Do you think that would change anyone's life? Boy, I don't know. I can think of some other things that might be more... Yeah, more pivotal than that. Pertinent, yeah. But today, we'll hear about the fact that that verse actually did that very thing today.

On More Than Ink. Well, good morning. This is Jim.

And I'm Dorothy. And we are delighted you're with us again. We're going to do something a little bit differently today. We finished the book of John, and we're going to look at God's Word written on people's hearts, the impact on people's lives, because we often take... I think we take the word for granted. As believers, we see, you know, here's the Bible. I'm supposed to read it, but does it have any real power?

Or does it have any real action in people's lives? And what we wanted to do was show you that, yes, indeed, the Word does have incredible power in people's lives to this very day. And today, we start with a couple of friends of ours that we just hold near and dear, Carla and Earl. And Carla and Earl Erskine, and we've known them for about 10 years. We met them right after they came out of the Mormon Church. They were members in good standing of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to use the proper terminology these days, very involved. And Earl began to ask some questions, which then yielded, I think, a 17-minute video recording that was aired on the program 10 years ago, and began to draw some attention. And we met him shortly after that. But for those of us who've been believers a large portion of our lives, it's fun to see how the Word has gigantic impact on people's lives, like right now.

I mean, really, in fantastic, influential ways. And I think you'll hear that when you hear Earl and Carla talk about their lives. Well, indeed, so many of our conversations, especially early on as we knew them, but also even up till now, so many of our conversations revolve around what they are learning or studying, or what we are studying or teaching, and how do we understand that. And we just bat the Word around together when we are with them. So it's fun to hear them tell their stories again today.

Yeah, exactly. And one of the funniest things I chuckle every time I hear it, it's pretty common among Mormons who become Christians, is they want to get the straight line on truth. And so they'll grab a Bible, and they'll only read the red letter, the words of Jesus. Actual words of Jesus. They don't want anyone in between.

They don't want Paul. They just want to hear what Jesus had to say. And so when they go through and look at the red letter words of Jesus, they realize that everything written that Jesus talked about, He never mentioned anything about Mormon issues, Mormon doctrine, Mormon traditions. Yeah, it's amazing how common that is. That's a story we hear again and again. They're just tired of middlemen telling them what they say is the truth.

They go straight to the source. Well, and God speaks for Himself. And His Word has power.

You know, I was thinking kind of how to introduce this. And what came to mind was Isaiah 55, where God says in verse 9, As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain and snow come down from heaven and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bare and sprout and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be which goes forth from My mouth. It shall not return to Me empty without accomplishing what I desire and succeeding in the matter for which I sent it. And it definitely succeeded in Earl and Carla's lives.

God's Word always accomplishes something. So I guess maybe we better just hear the interview. So without further ado, here's Earl and Carla, our dear friends, now talking about the Word. So we're here with Earl and Carla Erskine, and we're delighted you're with us. Thanks for having us.

I think this is fun. And these are some good friends of ours. We do some ministry together, which I think we'll talk about near the end, to tell people why we even know each other.

But God's the one who brought us together. So why don't you just give us like a little thumbnail, just a thumbnail summary of your coming out of the Mormon Church and stuff like that, how long ago that was. No, no, yeah.

Just an intro, just an intro. Yeah, it's been ten years, actually, this next month. Mother's Day. Ten years.

Mother's Day 2011 was the last time we were in church. 2011? Yeah. Golly.

Wow. And it's gone fast. Yeah, time flies.

We really appreciate the friends we've met. So we actually met you not very long after that, right? Oh, no, it was pretty immediate.

Who was pretty shortly there at the TV studio. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And Earl and Carl have come to the Lord and they love Him. And what we do on this broadcast is we talk about the role of the Word in people's lives. And I know with you guys that's been very much the case, especially because of the contrast with Mormon scriptures and stuff like that. So I think for a lot of our listeners, this is a brand new territory.

They have no clue. So the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, and it definitely has proven that in your guys' lives. So we just wanted to casually talk to you and say, so tell us about your involvement with the Word, past, present, future, and maybe even some verses that stick with it now that are a big deal. So we haven't really figured out who's going to talk first. I guess I'll start, if that's all right. And then Carla can say stop talking. Yeah, she'll tell me when to stop talking. That's right.

That's the way it goes at home. Well, first of all, there are some verses that we'd like to share, both Carla and I would like to. But I'd like to begin really at the beginning of when I started this journey out of Mormonism, I started thinking, well, why don't I know more about Jesus, and why don't I know even more so about Paul? Carla and I talked about it. We only knew about his trip to Damascus. That was really about all we knew. Not anything that he'd written.

No, not really. That's fascinating. A little more background is that I was a gospel doctrine teacher at least four different times for probably a total of eight, ten years. So I'd gone through the New Testament manual. Recently, or back when I was making this journey, I pulled out my old gospel doctrine manual and found out that there had been 46 lessons in the New Testament manual for the year. And as I looked through it, only nine of them covered Paul's epistles. Only nine chapters. A whole chapter on just Romans, one on just Hebrews. One chapter on Romans. And by the way, let me remind everybody that we only cover the New Testament every four years.

Once every four years. So there's nine. And so it answered the question, how come I don't know more about Paul?

Well, it makes sense now. Not only that, but some of the lessons of the nine are things like keep the temple of God and keep the ordinances as I delivered them. So they're really not about Paul and his teaching of the gospel. So it was quite enlightening to find out that I, that's the reason I didn't know more about Paul. And that's my first little segment, Carla. Okay, I will. Well, and you want to, before we get off, you want to speculate why it is that the Mormon Church doesn't tell you much about Paul?

Well, I would say that everything that Paul said about grace and about works, those things they skip over. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Cool.

Well, you know, it was really interesting when we first started reading the Bible, we both started crying. Oh, really? Yeah. Wow.

Sitting at the kitchen table. We just, it was just new to us. And even John, though, that was one I had read before. But I hadn't read any of the Bible. But one of the Scriptures that I came across I wanted to share, and it's a very popular one. It's Ephesians 2, chapter 2, verses 8 and 9.

For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. That's a big one. That hit me so strongly.

And now I'd like to share with you my boasting, if I could. Earl and I were always busy in the church. Right. We... Well, that's what you do in the Mormon Church, is you stay busy. I know.

I know. That's why this Scripture, I reread it and reread it. But we attended the temple. We did home and visiting teaching. Both of us held many leadership callings in both the ward and the stage. Right. Then there was home and visiting teaching, and family home evening, family history, Book of Mormon reading, teaching, did I say teaching, family home evening.

Then we have to do family history or the genealogy. So when do you have time to actually read your Bible and think about it? Yeah. Well, I never. Never. I leave the Bible home because it was so big and heavy.

That's what I did. But, you know, I had said and thought to myself, Jesus didn't mention any of these things in the Bible. Not a thing. And I felt very inadequate. And I used to ask Earl all the time, are you sure we're going to the Celestial Kingdom? And it was just a... And I'd have to reassure her that we're doing everything we can.

We haven't killed anybody, so we're going to make it. He says, well, we've been baptized, we pay our tithing, sure we're going to make it to the Celestial Kingdom. But that never, ever satisfied me, especially because Jesus hadn't mentioned these things.

Right, right. And here was this beautiful scripture, and it was through faith and by His love and grace, which we knew nothing about. So, when you read that, Carla, it suddenly shone a light on the, maybe the falseness of the works, pursuing the works, just by reading that were saved by grace through faith. It was a new concept. It was a whole new idea.

And those things were absent on the list. And that's what made you cry, am I understanding you correctly? Because you said you were reading, you started to cry when you were reading these scriptures. Yeah, reading that we'd never read before. Because the truth of it was making sense.

Yeah, it was. We were learning about a Jesus that we never knew. I've learned more the negative things about the Church, and I'd shared those with Carla, and we kind of covered over those. We just didn't know the joy and the freedom that we were going to feel in the grace of Jesus and His righteousness and what we were learning. We feel very grateful that we made this transition this way, because we know a lot of LDS people who aren't sure about the Church anymore or have questions, they don't seem to bring Jesus with them.

They don't have that foundation, and we feel very grateful. Don't they normally let Jesus go when they let the Church go? Well, they do, because their foundation is more built on the Church and their own personal worthiness. And when they find out the Church isn't true, or that Joseph Smith maybe had the polygamy and the problems of the Book of Mormon and all the different negative things, their foundation crumbles. And with it, they just throw Jesus out with it. So how is it that … They don't have a relationship with Jesus the way a Christian does, knowing that Jesus is God, not that Jesus is my brother.

Well, that's what I wanted to ask, Carla. How did reading the Bible drop that peg in the hole for you? Well, interesting you ask, because my next little thing is Matthew 5.8, a very simple little, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. And I have been doing some association with some really pure in heart people, just the best Christians or best people, just gave of themselves, serving other people and being so sensitive and stuff. And I started dwelling and pondering this Scripture, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Well, that's not Mormon doctrine, really. You can't be just pure in heart.

You've got to be a tithe payer and a temple attender and all those other things. And they weren't members of the Church. No, they weren't.

Thank you, dear. Oh, really? Yeah, they weren't members of the Church. And so I'm saying, well, how are they going to make it? And I had a good friend who was a member of the Church say, well, yeah, they'll be with us in heaven. And I'd say to her, no, they can't be with us in heaven unless they get baptized into the Church.

They do the stuff. So that simple little Scripture just probably had such impact on me. And then I read all the words of Jesus in red, and what he said and didn't say about temples and tithing and all that stuff was amazing. Yeah, it's what's left out from Mormon doctrine and expectations, and Jesus doesn't touch on any of them. I don't think I've ever heard from anybody before that blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God was the thing that got their attention and started them thinking, well, how do I see God? Because only the people that get to the top of the celestial kingdom, or at least into the celestial kingdom, get to see Heavenly Father. He doesn't dwell in any of these other terrestrial and telestial worlds.

So he's only in the celestial, and that requires at least baptism into the Church. So that was really impactful and such a simple little statement that got me curious. It does reinforce the fact, though, that the Holy Spirit uses the word in, I'll say, unique levers in people's lives. So what would affect you probably wouldn't affect me. He knows where your heart's at, and he knows where these words will kind of grab.

What they'll mean to me. That's why you have so many stories of different verses, and you go, really, that did that for you? Really? Yeah. That is fascinating. What's your next one, hon?

This was actually the most important verse, and has really the least to do, I think, with God and Jesus, but it's Acts 17, 24, and it's God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is the Lord of heaven and earth dwelleth not in temples made with hands and hands. Oh, boy. I just exploded. Oh, no. You know, I just thought, what?

What? You mean these temples are nothing? God doesn't acknowledge them? He, you know, he never made, you know, temples out of brick and mortar or earthly things. And we've had friends tell us that Jesus walks the halls of the temple at night. Right.

Right. Oh, you can't leave the church because Jesus walks the halls of the temple every night. And I thought, and I wondered when she said this, well, which temple does he walk in? Takes turns.

There's a jump around. But anyway, and I mean, our bodies are the temples of God, and he dwells in us. And that was probably the biggest thing. In fact, I looked in my Bible, and I've got that scripture written all over in different places. That you are the temple that he lives in?

No, that God does not live in that. Gotcha. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Made with hands.

Yeah. Well, actually, Isaiah 66 begins that way when God says, hey, I made all these things. Where's the temple that you could build to contain me?

You can't build a building that will contain me. And so I think that probably is what Paul was alluding to, even though his audience there was, we're not Jews. But isn't that fabulous that that's what jumped off the page and became alive for you? That was the first thing. I love that. I do too. I love that. Yeah.

I do too. Since temples are so important to us. Yeah.

Yeah. And Mormons, anyway. The whole thrust of scripture is that we become the temple. We become the dwelling place of God in the spirit.

And now you know that in reality. Yeah. What a special thing it is when you hold the temple in such high regard, because that's where God occupies. And then Paul so clearly says, well, he's occupying you.

He's in you. What? Yeah.

You're the temple of God. Yeah. That has given me so much comfort. Christ in you. Sure.

Yeah. Christ in you. Especially as you've continued to walk and grow in the scripture. And age.

Well, we won't talk about that. But how you begin to internalize the truth of that, and it begins to mean more at different levels as you grow in the Lord. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, the whole study of the Bible for us has been really profound. And it's just something that we just were unaware of. We always were told to read the Book of Mormon. Never go study the Bible. Go read the Bible. Well, they didn't tell us to read the D&C, or. Basically it was, I don't know about priesthood, but it was all about the Book of Mormon. So what struck you as so different then when you started to really read the Bible?

I mean, if you were going to put the Bible and Book of Mormon side by side, what would you say the first big difference that struck you, or the most important difference that struck you? Oh, the spirit. Unpack that a little bit, Carla. It was the spirit of God. I mean, we did. I mean, if I wasn't crying, I was just bringing it all in. And the spirit of God was with me. And I had not experienced that with the Book of Mormon at all, which I read several times. You know, I enjoyed. In fact, when I started the Book of Mormon, I'd say, okay, now I'm going to read this like a story, so I'm going to be able to get through it.

This is a story, but I had to talk myself into that. But the Bible just, the spirit was in me when I read the Bible. I think the difference for me, maybe, was that we were reading it with Christian eyes, as opposed to Mormon eyes, or LDS eyes, because we had always read these scriptures. I mean, how many times have I read, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

I've read that thousands, hundreds of times, and heard it quoted and everything. But all of a sudden, I'm seeing things, allowing myself to see things differently. And that's another one that I'd share with us here is Hebrews 1, 1, and 2.

Oh, yeah. God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son. So that takes on a whole different perspective, because we are so tied into prophets, seers, and revelators now. And to learn what, again, what Jesus said, what he didn't say, and to try to follow that.

It was fascinating. And there were no prophets. Yeah, in fact, did it ever cause you to ask yourself, well, if Jesus spoke and our prophets have been speaking, how much do I know from what our prophets have been saying, compared to how much do I know that Jesus actually straight said? You know, did that ever occur to you, like, I think I know a lot more from what our prophets have said during conferences than I think I know about all of what Jesus has said.

Yeah, there was probably a lot of that, actually. Because a friend of mine, I remember, he was my boss at the time, we were having discussions. He was Mormon. And we wanted to talk about, I forget what the topic was, but I said, we'll come back next time, and we'll kind of compare our sources. And I brought my Bible and showed stuff. And he brought a whole stack of Ensign Magazine. And I said, well, what is this? And he says, well, this is from the prophet. This is a better source of information. Oh, okay.

So we just sort of disconnected right there. Well, I'd like to share this one really quick. I know we don't have lots of time, but it's Galatians 1 and 8, though we or an angel preach any other gospel than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. And this is a warning to us. And even as Christians, if we pick up something else or start to leave or stray away from the gospel of Jesus, this one has been really comforting to me, too, that this is the Word. This is what we need to read and believe and live. And we don't want to be accursed, that's for sure. Well, and the important thing with that scripture, too, is find out what Paul taught as the gospel. Right, because how are you supposed to be able to tell? I didn't know that.

I didn't know that. So what he preached was grace. What do you use as your measuring stick for the gospel to know if you've strayed? It's got to be the Word.

Yeah, that's the only way. And it also kind of underscores the importance of being vigilant, because even though you've come from the Mormon Church, we still live in this sort of cesspool of spiritual deception that people will take in bizarre directions that aren't biblical in terms of the gospel. Well, and the biblical gospel is really very simple.

Jesus, the Son of God, came, took on flesh, died for us, and rose again. Boom. That's pretty much it.

I didn't have a concept even when I left the church that it was about Jesus and His righteousness. Right. It was always about me accomplishing what I needed to teach. Yeah. They were proud.

Yeah. I didn't realize that it was about Jesus. And that's what the Bible has given me, I think, is that message that Jesus is the one who said He is God and it's His righteousness. It's very humbling for us, because we understand that we're all sinners, and it also exalts Him.

He gets bigger, we get smaller. That's a good deal. Yeah.

That's a good deal. We've got a little bit of time left. Why don't you take a little bit, not much, why don't you take a little bit and talk about the Ex-Mormon Files stuff and how people can kind of follow up a little bit more.

Yeah, I do. I have interviewed over 350 people who have left the church. That's amazing. And their stories are tremendous. And like you said, it's so fascinating to hear the different things that affected people coming out.

But they can find those interviews on exmormonfiles.com. And it's just a gigantic collection of people telling their stories. Yeah, telling their story and gratefully these are all people who have come to the knowledge of Jesus. Right, right, right. Again, have become Christian and so we've appreciated that opportunity. And for whom, like you guys, the Word played a gigantic role.

Yeah, it did. Well listen, we are out of time. So thank you so much. You guys are dear friends to us. We love you so much. It's just been a joy to see you. We appreciate all your support and everything you do for us.

So thanks again. Well that was remarkable. I'd heard many pieces of their story before and it's just glorious to hear them tell it again. It really was fun to sit at the table and just listen to them talk with one another. And of course they had prepared what scriptures they wanted to read, but it's just good to sit and hear their stories again. And when was the last time you had anyone relate to you that they picked up their Bible and made them start to cry? Right, isn't that lovely?

Yeah, the truth. That the Word was touching so deeply the tender, hungry places. That speaks to me.

I mean, it's not a frequent occurrence that when I read the Word these days because it's so familiar and I love it, but it doesn't make me cry. Next week we're going to do this again with another dear friend of ours and I think you'll join us in understanding the fact that God's Word indeed is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword. So when you read these words on our page, they're more than ink.

They're the power of the Word of God itself. So join us next week on More Than Ink. More Than Ink is a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City and is solely responsible for its content. To contact us with your questions or comments, just go to our website, morethanink.org. And I don't have any idea what we're going to say in this opening segment, so...