Uh In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word Was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him. Was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. We were all born and raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah. More commonly referred to as the Mormon faith. All of us have left that religion and have been drawn to faith in Jesus Christ based on biblical teachings. The name of our podcast, Outer Brightness, reflects John 1:9, which calls Jesus the true light which gives light to everyone.
We have found life beyond Mormonism to be brighter than we were told it would be, and the light we have is not our own, it comes to us from without. Thus, outer brightness. Our purpose is to share our journeys of faith and what God has done in drawing us to His Son. We have conversations about all aspects of that transition: the fears, challenges, joys, and everything in between. We're glad you found us, and we hope you'll stick around.
You're listening to Outer Brightness, a podcast for post-Mormons who are drawn by God. to walk with Jesus rather than turn away. Outer brightness, outer brightness, outer brightness, outer brightness. There's no weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth here. Except when Michael's hanger that is, anger that is, angry that is.
I'm Matthew, the nuclear Calvinist. I'm Michael, the ex-Mormon apologist. I'm Paul Bunyan. Let's get into it. Welcome back, Fireflies.
This week, we are focusing in again on the article by Matthew that was published on Beggar's Bread entitled The Mormon Chameleon. This week, we're focusing on the second part of that article, and we hope you enjoy our conversation. As we saw in part one of this series, the Mormon gospel is impossible because a Latter-day Saint can never really. have an absolute assurance of their salvation. Common response to this observation by outsiders is that some Latter-day Saints who say it isn't about obedience to all the commandments, but instead is just about doing your best.
However, this isn't what the LDS scriptures teach whatsoever. As Mormon prophet Kimball said in his book, The Miracle of Forgiveness, which we are covered in some detail in part one, Jesus' commandment to be perfect in Matthew 5:48 to mean you must actually rid yourself of sin and that no commandment has been given to men that cannot be kept. Not only is this Mr. Kimball's interpretation in his book, but this concept is also taught in the Book of Mormon and is often used by LDS members and missionaries. Quote, And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto my father, I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them, close quote.
That's from the book of Mormon, 1 Nephi chapter 1. Chapter 3, verse 7. Thus, if God commanded you to be perfect, you really can achieve it. LDS will say they can't do anything without God's help, but it still ultimately lies upon their shoulders to achieve it. LDS scriptures also say that if you repent of a sin and return to it, the guilt of all your former sins returns upon your head.
Quote, And now verily I say unto you, I, the Lord, will not lay any sin to your charge. Go your ways and sin no more. But unto that soul who sinneth shall the former sins return, saith the Lord your God, close quote. And that's doctrine and covenants chapter 82, verse 7.
So, according to LDS doctrine, not only are you enabled to keep all of God's commandments, you must keep them all, every single one of them. And if you break any of them, then the guilt of all the sins you've already repented of come back upon you. Thus, you can never truly achieve a state of forgiveness or amended relationship with God, because humans are sinful creatures that sin many, many times every day. Those who deny this don't really understand the absolute holiness of God or the depravity of man in their sin. Even a lustful or jealous thought is a sin against a holy God.
Everything we do is tainted by sin. There is no complete freedom from the grasp of sin in this life. Thus, there is no true and lasting forgiveness, according to the LDS Gospel.
So, to summarize, the LDS Gospel, according to their own materials, then. Is faith in Jesus Christ, repentance. Baptism by water for the remission of sins, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands of someone with priesthood authority, receiving other ordinances such as priesthood for men, temple initiatories or washing and anointing, temple endowment, celestial marriage, or temple sealing for husband and wife, continuing to be faithful, attend sacrament meetings, fulfilling your church callings, etc. Striving to reach for perfection by working and keeping the covenants you've made and keep all the commandments, not just to the best of your ability, but striving for absolute perfection, knowing that God actually makes it possible for you to achieve perfection in this life, since he cannot give you a commandment you cannot keep, according to 1 Nephi 3.7. If you do all of these things, then, and only then, you might have a shot at achieving exaltation.
Does this sound too radical, too ridiculous? They cannot possibly believe all this, you may say.
Well, if it sounds like I'm misrepresenting them, I will quote the list of directions for achieving exaltation given by the LDS Teaching Church Manual, Gospel Principles, which is the book they use to teach aspiring and new members of the LDS Church the basics of what they believe. In chapter 47, titled Exaltation, pages 278 to 279, it says thus, quote, To be exalted, we first must place our faith in Jesus Christ and then endure in that faith to the end of our lives. Our faith in him must be such that we repent of our sins and obey his commandments. He commands us all to receive certain ordinances. We must be baptized.
We must receive the laying on of hands to be confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ and to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Brethren must receive the Melchizedek priesthood and magnify their callings in the priesthood. We must receive the temple endowment. We must be married for eternity, either in this life or in the next. In addition to receiving the required ordinances, the Lord commands all of us to love God and our neighbors, keep the commandments, repent of our wrongdoings, search out our kindred dead and receive the saving ordinances of the gospel for them.
Attend our church meetings as regularly as possible so we can renew our baptismal covenants by partaking of the sacrament. Love our family members and strengthen them in the ways of the Lord. Have family and individual prayers every day. Teach the gospel to others by word and example. Study the scriptures, listen to, and obey the inspired word of the modern prophets of the Lord.
Finally, each of us needs to receive the Holy Ghost and to learn to follow direction in our lives. Close quote.
So, in that same chapter on page 279, it states, The Lord has said, If you keep my commandments and endure to the end, you shall have eternal life, which gift is the greatest of all the gifts of God, which is from Doctrine and Covenants 14, verse 7. President Joseph Fielding Smith said, If we will continue in God, that is, keep his commandments, worship him, and live his truth, then the time will come when we shall be bathed in the fullness of truth, we shall grow brighter and brighter until the perfect day, which is doctrines of salvation 2:36. Close quote.
So, could it be any clearer that salvation, which is defined by the LDS as eternal life with God, having a fullness of happiness and glory with our eternal family? Could it be any clearer that salvation by this definition, according to the LDS gospel, certainly does depend on you, your faithfulness, your works, your struggles, your efforts to become perfect? When Christians point out the grace, And the death of Jesus Christ on the cross is insufficient to grant eternal life, according to Latter-day Saints, and that you must provide your own works of obedience to receive eternal life, we are often accused of misrepresenting them. But do these quotes from the LDS Church's own resources, which you can easily find on their website or buy in an LDS bookstore, provide enough evidence for our case? Does this quote-unquote gospel sound like good news to you?
To spend an entire life yoked with an immense set of commandments and covenants that you must keep perfectly according to your own faithfulness, or else you will receive a lower kingdom of glory? This is the exact kind of religion that Jesus came to abolish. The Pharisees and other Jews believed that it was their devotion to the 613 commandments in the law of Moses that made them right before God, but their hearts and devotion were far from him who gave the law as a schoolmaster to bring Israel to the true Messiah. They were devoted, obedient, but they put their tradition on the same level of scripture. They did not keep everything perfectly as they should.
Jesus said of them that they are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside, but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and every impurity. In the same way, on the outside, They appear to be righteous, but on the inside they are full of hypocrisy and wickedness, which is Matthew 23, verses 27 and 28. Thanks, Matthew. All right, so let me ask you this. In this article, you quoted quite a bit from LDS leaders, both past and present, that LDS teaching materials are and LDS teaching materials to show that LDS are instructed, that perfection is required.
Why did you do that? Anytime we say, well, LDS require perfection, they require perfection, a lot of day saints themselves will be upset and they'll say, well, like, no, we're not saved by works. We say that grace is required. You know, they'll get very defensive. And I'm not saying that LDS believe that they.
Of their own works alone are saved, but it's also wrong to say that they're saved by faith alone or grace alone. They certainly believe that grace is important. They're not true Pelagians. Pelagius was someone in the past who said that man is basically good and capable of obeying God by his own works without grace.
So we're not saying that the Latter-day Saints are. Pure and truly Pelagians, they still believe grace is necessary. But in the LDS gospel, grace is not sufficient.
So we have to really point out that perfection is an absolute requirement, and that not only that's a requirement, but that their leaders have taught that it's achievable. Because if you merely just try to go backwards, like we were saying in the previous episode, and we say, well, grace is important, keeping the commandments is important, but really, you just got to do your best. And that's all it's, you know, that's all you got to do. And you're good, it's good enough. But really, it's like, no, and in no uncertain terms, as the LDS Church, through its various leaders, has said multiple times that perfection is something you can achieve even in this life.
And it's something you need to strive for. Yeah, so a thought that kind of comes into my head too is: you know, they do want to. To say a lot of times that these leaders are fallible men, and they may have said something that isn't true, but I think there comes a point when enough of them. Have hammered in a message that it just can't be ignored. You can't continue to say, Well, they're just fallible.
You know, and if they can go and they can quote from these early church fathers after the apostasy supposedly happened and still promote a message that they spoke, then they certainly have. Have to take seriously what their leaders have said when there's not been an apostasy because these men are still speaking canon basically in the LDS mindset. What they speak is scripture. And so, Yeah, it's it's very serious and And I think it's been at a level. It's been spoken of so much.
That it kind of throws into question: are the LES leaders able to accurately? Receive revelation in the first place if this many of them have been wrong.
So, those were just some thoughts that came to my mind. I don't know if you had any other thoughts, Paul. Yeah, I think we've covered it quite a bit. Um, it's you know, I've talked a little bit about my experiences with my mom before she passed, and I know uh Dan covered it on our recent episode where we had Dan and Brianna on as well and his discussions with my mom. And um, you know, especially leading up to the time when she was uh close to passing.
You know, we had a lot of conversations about this particular difference, right? That you are either saved by grace alone through faith alone, or you're saved by grace plus your own works and strivings for perfection. And in one, there is true hope, in the other, there's The feeling that you never truly know whether you are saved. And my mom expressed that to me several times: that she didn't know if she had done enough for exaltation. And her fear was that because my father and she had been sealed in the temple when they were married, that if she had not done enough, then their sealing would not be ratified by the Holy Spirit of promise.
And therefore, she and my father would not be together in heaven. And it's interesting there, too, that the hope isn't I'll be with Jesus. The hope is I'll be with my husband or my wife. And you can see in some of these details that the gospel just is different. Yeah, you kind of struck a nerve with me, too, just now, talking about ceilings.
And out of the three of us, I'm the only one that has had a temple ceiling. Um become nullified. And you know what I When I got married in the temple, I'm like, okay, well, I've got, you know, this eternal ceiling and You know, this is going to make my marriage stronger because it's sealed by. The priesthood, but then as the marriage went on and we had struggles, it really felt to me like it was all on me. I needed to be a better husband.
I needed to try harder. And then when I left the church and my leaving and taking out my records nullified that eternal marriage, it really just put that feeling on me like this, the ceiling was not that strong. It was just. It was like paper. Basically, it's a piece of paper.
It doesn't have any real strength to it. And there's a lot of parallels to that, in my opinion, with God's promise of eternal life in Mormonism because it's conditional and it does require our perfection, our total perfection. And the Bible, the LDS Bible Dictionary, still says that. that salvation requires each total Total effort, or grace requires total effort on the part of the recipient to receive it. And because of that, it makes grace not sufficient, like you said, but it makes it deficient.
So, yeah, really, really good points there. Yeah. Anything else you guys wanted to add to that? Not to correct you, but I've also had a ceiling nullified. You did, okay.
And that happened when we as a family sent our letter to have our names removed from the records of the LDS church. And, you know, a lot of times when I talk to Latter-day Saints and they know my situation, that I've left the LDS church, they'll try to extend to me a grace that the LDS church does not extend to me, which is they'll say, Oh, I think you're still a good person. I can tell you believe in Jesus Christ.
So I think God will judge you worthy in the end, right? They'll try to give me that grace, but when I When we sent in our letter of resignation, we received back a letter that. Made it clear that all of our ordinances and any promises attached thereto are null and void. And so, you know, the LDS church, with that letter, and of course, we knew when we sent our letter that's what they were doing, but they make it clear in response that that is what you are doing. You are severing yourself from the church.
And as Matthew was touching in part one, touching on in part one, you know, and with that question, how would you respond to a Latter-day Saint that was just excommunicated because of sin?
Someone who leaves and removes their name from the records of the church, the LDS church is in the same boat, right? The ordinances mean nothing now. And so it's a situation where it's interesting that Latter-day Saints try to extend that grace of Christ to you, but the church does not. And I just find that interesting. Yeah, and I do think that there's kind of becoming more of a wider void between The church itself and what the members think.
And you see that a lot with a lot of members now believing that it is. Grace and it's Jesus Himself, but that doesn't erase the fact that the LDS Church has a doctrine that goes against that, and that the church itself is false, even if.
Some of the members in the church. Are starting to embrace something that looks closer to the true biblical gospel. All right, well, I'll go ahead and jump into this next question because, you know, Paul, you were kind of using the word exaltation here. But Matthew, throughout this article, you've used the terms exalted and exaltation. Should we take some time to unpack those terms and compare them to the way Christians speak about salvation?
Yeah, so we've talked about in previous episodes how. Terminology is really important when talking with Latter-day Saints.
So, a lot of times, Christians will just say salvation is by grace and Mormons will say, Amen. You know, we believe that salvation is by grace, but it's a little bit of an equivocation there. There's two different definitions of salvation being used there.
So, typically, what Christians are talking about when they say salvation is they mean being redeemed from your sins, being saved from the punishment of sins, which is eternal complaints. Condemnation. It's being united to Christ. It's returning to the presence of the Father.
So it's, you know, it's, it's all salvation can be, you can talk about specific aspects of salvation if you want to, because they're in terms of time, there's past, present, and future aspects of salvation. But broadly speaking, salvation is having the promise of eternal life or with God eternally.
So, uh, That's what Christians are usually talking about with salvation.
Sometimes they're speaking specifically about: are you saved in the sense of have you been justified? Have you been declared righteous through faith alone and Christ alone?
So, when you're talking to Latter-day Saints, sometimes you can't use salvation because Mormons or Latter-day Saints will say that they believe that everybody is saved. But when they say that word saved, they mean they're saved from death because through the atonement of Christ, everybody will be resurrected.
So, that means that they'll be saved from physical death, but they won't necessarily be saved from spiritual death.
So, that's why I try to technically use more often exalted or exaltation because Latter-day Saint theology equates exaltation with eternal life, meaning returning to the presence of God, having the fullness of the presence of the Father and all the blessings that he has promised.
So, when Christians say salvation, that's probably more closely tied to, but it's not exactly equal to, the LDS concept of exaltation or eternal life with the So That's why I tried to refer to LDS salvation exaltation specifically versus when Christians, when we're referring to returning to live with God, we sometimes usually just call that salvation.
So I hope that kind of clears that up a little bit. Yeah, I think that's really good, especially for somebody who's never been LDS to kind of understand that because it's really easy to just, we're, you know, we're used to just using the word salvation and throwing that around. And to a Latter-day Saint, it's got a lot of different layers to it and a lot of different meanings. I personally, I think, try to use the term eternal life the most when I'm talking to Latter-day Saints, just because sometimes I'll get a weird look when I Talk about exaltation. I mean, it definitely, they know what I'm saying.
There's no question about it.
So it is useful there for sure. But I think it also has a lot to do with becoming a god and going down that path. And they'll kind of say, well, you're not. You don't even believe in that, but at least with eternal life, it's something that I believe in, it's something they believe in, and it is a higher level than just salvation. You know, it's kind of talking about being in the Father and the Son's presence.
And what's kind of crazy is like the Doctrine and Covenants, if you guys remember this, when it talks about the three different kingdoms. It talks about the telestial kingdom, which is the lowest heaven. You don't even get to be in the presence of Jesus or Heavenly Father in the telestial kingdom, and yet it uses that word salvation. It says that those who go there are heirs of salvation. And in our mindset, it's like, in what sense?
Because. How can you have salvation and not even be in Christ's presence? And so I think it's really good that you made that distinction because it is definitely one that needs to be made because it's so complicated between our two different languages that we speak. Yeah. Yeah.
And I want to get you guys' thoughts on something.
So, even with the term eternal life, as you were talking about, Michael. There's still some questions, I think.
So, if you go to DNC, and I forget which section it is, but when it's talking about eternal punishment, right? And it's making the case that eternal punishment is God's punishment, and it kind of redefines eternal in a way that is different than. A translation of the Hebrew word Olam, right? And so it redefines eternal to be of a certain duration. It's not infinite.
It's not eternal in the sense that Christians understand eternal. And it does that with regards to the punishment of hell, right? It's God's punishment, but it's not everlasting. And so it's interesting if you take that same redefinition of eternal to the term eternal life, what does that mean? Does that mean even in the afterlife that there is not full Assurance.
What do you think?
Well, I think that most LDS aren't making that. Connection, even though it is a logical connection to make. I've just kind of noticed that usually when they say eternal life, it They're just referring to life in the celestial kingdom because it says in the Bible, this is life eternal to know, you know. To know the one true God and your son who you've sent. But in line with what you're saying, I mean, that's true.
There never is. Assurance, even you know, the book of Mormon says that God can fall from, he can stop being God. If his justice is destroyed or if he changes, he would cease to be God. It says it twice in the Book of Mormon. That I know of.
Yeah. So if eternal life is as they define it, eternal life is the type of life that God lives, if God or someone who has been exalted stops. Living that type of life, you know, it's just an interesting thing to note in their language. It is. And Latter-day Saints will usually tell me, like their apologists will say, well that's That's crazy.
God can't sin. I mean, it's like it's hypothetical, right? But I mean, it gives specific points for what would cause that to happen. And my argument has always been. that if you take a possibility and you extend it through eternity, It's not a possibility anymore.
It is a certainty that at some point the God of Mormonism will fall from his Godhood.
Well, it kind of brings us back to our opening point for part one of Matthew's gospel, our opening question: why is it so important to kind of teach? Tee up with the nature of God when you're talking to Latter-day Saints. Because if God could potentially fall, right, and the Latter-day Saint apologist response is, well, God can't sin, it's hypothetical, like you said, Michael. If it's just hypothetical, then what the Latter-day Saint apologist is saying is that God is God by nature, which completely nullifies the whole Latter-day Saint system. And you reach a point where the Latter-day Saint apologist is agreeing with the Christian.
Where they would say, Yeah, God is God by nature and didn't become God. Yeah, and that's that's always a good place to get to with a Latter-day Saint because then you can just kind of say, you know what, you win, I agree with you. Yeah, I've heard that too before, where they would say that, so, like, well, maybe God. You know, well, maybe it wasn't God, God wasn't God by nature, but maybe He became a partaker of the divine nature just like we can become partakers of the divine nature. You know what I mean?
So it's like becoming God is entering into this realm of God, godness. I don't know what you want to say, divinity, I guess. And so we enter it just like he did. But yeah, I don't know. There's a lot of questions that if you want to interpret it certain ways, it could really cause problems.
The one thing I was thinking too about in terms of being eternal, you know, like it's like they want to use their definition of eternal and our definition of eternal because they'll say, well, God's eternal. He's always existed, but he hasn't always existed as God. But he's eternal in the sense that that's the kind of life that God lives. But he didn't always live that way.
So it's like they want to try to employ both definitions of the word eternal so that they can say, hey, we're biblical, but we still agree with our scriptures. But you can't use both terms of the word eternal and apply it to God. You know, I've seen them do the exact same thing when they use the word perfect. In the same conversation, they will go switch between morally perfect and complete. And it's just really confusing and really hard to follow.
And it's just really easy to kind of almost disengage and just want to. Give up having that conversation because it's not consistent all the time. Yeah, when we had our episode with Jordan, that was one thing that we really focused on in our interview: just making sure that you put on the table what terms, how are you defining things, and then start to. Go through the conversation so that you can say, okay, wait a minute. The beginning of this conversation, you defined it this way.
Now you're using it in a totally different sense.
So let's back up. What are you going to try to redefine what you originally said? Are you using a different term? You know, we've got to stick to our terms because if we're just going to keep equivocating, going back and forth, saying, and flipping around, we can't really have a conversation. I mean, imagine if the English language, if you could just decide at any given moment that a word could be defined however you want, like communication would just be absolutely impossible.
So that's why it's just so important that we just nail things down the beginning. And that's why I call this the chameleon gospel. The Mormon gospel is a chameleon gospel because not just the gospel changes, but language changes. You know, everything changes. It's amorphous.
It's vague. It can be kind of whatever you want it to be at any moment. And that's what makes it so difficult for Christians to try to talk to Mormons because they could read book after book after book of LDS history, LDS teachings. And then they talk to a Latter-day Saint and they have no idea what's going on because they're like, wait a minute, this isn't what I read. This isn't what I've experienced talking to these other Latter-day Saints.
What are you talking about?
So it's very frustrating to try to deal with that. And what you said, Matthew, it just hit me. I think I'm convinced that Joseph Smith was a prophet because he was postmodern before postmodernism was cool.
Okay, the apostate, Paul. Apostate? Apostate. All right, Matthew. You want to start reading the last section of your article?
When I bring up this importance of obedience in the LDS Gospel, I am criticized. You never truly understood the gospel. That isn't what we believe. Then they present one of the myriad of explanations, as I gave above, of what they think the gospel really is. That is the kind of response I invariably receive when attempting to discourse with them.
They can label me as an ex-Mormon, an anti-Mormon, an apostate, which is technically true as I did leave their faith, in an attempt to disparage me, but this is merely an ad hominem attack to avoid the substance of my argumentation. Do not the Latter-day Saints scriptures and leaders themselves, as I've quoted above, show that it is obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel that prepares them for eternal life? If this isn't the case, how do they explain these statements from their scriptures, their leaders, and the official LDS Church's website? When I attempt to address what the LDS Church officially teaches, and I'm told I'm misrepresenting them and what they believe, I wonder why this is the case. Why not just honestly describe what your church teaches?
Does the LDS church not teach that you can become gods, as described in Doctrine and Covenants section 132, verses 19 through 20? Does it not teach you that obedience to the law is how you achieve such a status? Does it not also teach that God's grace alone cannot save you, but you must also do works and receive ordinances to make eternal life possible? Why try to make the focus all about grace, all about God's mercy, etc., and minimize the importance of your contribution and your obedience? for your eternal life when it has been made so abundantly clear by your church's teaching.
For example, if I point out that the LDS believe you need works to be saved and it is dependent on what you do, as I previously described, they rebut that I never understood the LDS gospel and that the gospel is more about being transformed by God's grace to become like him. than obedience.
So then I show that the gospel, according to the Bible, is indeed salvation by God's grace, as they seem to be indicating, but that it is not just by God's grace we are saved. It is by God's grace alone, through faith in Christ alone, through which we are saved and receive eternal life. They then immediately point to James 2 to show you can't just be saved by faith alone. You need good works to receive eternal life. It feels like playing a perpetual game of whack-a-mole, where one argument presents itself, and so you attempt to address it, but before you can address it, it has disappeared and been replaced by another.
If I try to show them what their own church teaches, it is repudiated. But then when I show them what the Bible teaches and how it refutes what they just stated that they believe, they claim that either what I'm understanding from the Bible is incorrect or try to cast a different light upon their church's gospel and attempt to make the Bible fit what they believe instead of what I believe. Or they will assert, albeit more rarely these days, that the Bible is corrupted or missing the entirety of the restored gospel from it. In their Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi chapter 13, it teaches that the Bible had many plain and precious truths removed from it by the great. Abominable church, which was historically understood by Latter-day Saints to be the Roman Catholic Church, but in more recent years has been changed to be any church that fights against them.
This is why I refer to the LDS Gospel in these articles as the chameleon gospel. It isn't because the LDS Gospel isn't well defined. It certainly is well defined by the LDS Church's leaders, scriptures, and teaching manuals, as the quotations from the LDS Gospel Topics Manual above and the passages from the Book of Mormon show. But the LDS Gospel is presented as one of many different things in a variety of fashions by each individual Latter-day Saint. And the way they present it might change depending on what the topic is, and may even change within the course of the same discussion.
This makes it incredibly difficult to do apologetics with Latter-day Saints because they each have their own version of what the LDS Gospel. Really is. If we attempt to identify what their church believes, we are often accused of misrepresentation, lying, etc.
So, if you are a Latter-day Saint and you are reading this, I plead with you, read at least this paragraph. I love you. I try to discuss the Bible with you because I care about you and your eternal welfare. I truly believe what the Bible says, and what Jesus says in the Bible is that if you don't have the correct belief of Him in the gospel, you won't go to some lower glory or kingdom of heaven, you will burn in hell for your sins for all eternity. See John 8, verse 24, Matthew 25, 31 through 46.
There are no second chances after we die. There was no gospel preached in the afterlife. This life, this time, now is the time to believe in the true Jesus Christ, the Lord of the universe, that created absolutely every created thing, everything that exists other than God, who is the only uncreated being. According to Colossians 1, verses 15 through 17, he is he who is God from all eternity to all eternity and not a spirit child of Elohim and his wife, and definitely not the spirit brother of Lucifer. It is through faith in him and his death on the cross alone that will make you righteous before God, as it occurred with Abraham.
Quote, What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.
Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due. And to the one who Does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. Just as David also speaks of the blessings of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.
And that's Romans 4, verses 1 through 8. I implore you. If you do not know the Christ of the Bible as your Savior, turn to him with an open hand, knowing you have nothing to offer God but only your dirty hands covered in the filth of your sins. Turn to him as Savior to pull you from the wretched muck that surrounds you. Trust in him and in him alone to save and keep you as your only hope.
Reject your past works and accomplishments, which are as filthy rags before God. See Isaiah 64, 6. They will do nothing but condemn you. Rely on the mercy of God alone to save you from them. The perfection which is required in Matthew 25, 48 can only be fulfilled by the one who did keep all the commandments, Christ Jesus, and by receiving his spotless, perfect righteousness credited to your account through faith alone.
This is how all your past, present, and future sins may be forgiven. If you are in Christ, the punishment for all these sins is placed on the Lord's death on the cross on your behalf. This is the biblical gospel. This is how I and all saved Christians keep the command to be perfect. This is how we have a right relationship with God.
This is how we are considered righteous. I am not righteous by what I do because all my sinful deeds ever do is condemn me. Even after being saved, even my best efforts are tainted by my sinfulness. But I am saved because the Lord has died for my sins, and I place all my trust in what He has done to save me. And God has made the promise for all those who do put their faith and trust in Him.
Quote, and I am sure of this: that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ, close quote. And that's Philippians 1, verse 6. I pray that God will open your hearts to this message and that you will believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved, as did the Philippian jailer. See Acts 16, verses 25 through 40, and countless others, including me, have done. Turn to Christ before it is too late.
Amen. Thank you, Matthew. And I really love the way you close that out by pointing out that Christ. Christians actually do Keep the commandment to be therefore perfect. Because that's often the question that follows, right?
If we disagree with the way Latter-day Saints interpret that passage in light of. 3 Nephi 12, 48 in the Book of Mormon, then they will say, okay, so how do you interpret it? And they ask that question, whether they're thinking in terms of moral perfection or bodily perfection, right?
So I'm glad that you covered that. And Philippians 1, 6, it's another of those passages that, you know, I know I read because I read the entire New Testament at the end of my mission.
So I know I read that passage as a Mormon, but it did not hit me what that passage was saying until after I had left. And when I saw that passage for what it is saying, It gave me so much hope that, you know, yeah, I'm still mired in sin. Uh as a human being. But when I have faith in Christ, that's God beginning a good work in me, and he's going to bring that work to completion. That hope of the true gospel is just amazing.
Do you have any comments on this last section of Matthew's article? Yeah, and Sort of tying the end with something that he said earlier on to, he said that, you know, faith needs an object. And I really liked that. And kind of an analogy that comes to my mind is: you know, if one of you guys ever. Strikes it rich and becomes a millionaire, it would be you'd probably give me a really strange look if I came and said, Where's that car, you know, that you that you owe me?
But it'd be totally different if you Promised it to me, and then I. Ask for it, if that makes sense, because there's actually a promise on which I am basing. A belief that I'm going to get something. And for us, that is the promise of eternal life that God gives us. Just kind of Of thinking about how Latter-day Saints view the person of God.
A lot of them believe that maybe there's an open theism where He doesn't really know what we're going to do. If we're going to fall You know, into sin or fall away. And it seems very strange for him to give us a promise of eternal life. If there's no way for him to keep that promise because of what we may do, or if he's so short-sighted that. that he can't see the future, that promise begins to really mean nothing.
And I would just say that to any Latter day Saint who is listening to the podcast, that there is a God out there. who makes a promise that is infallible to us. That we can, that we are saved through faith in his name, and there's nothing that can take that away. From us. Amen.
It goes back to what we were talking about how not every Christian, biblical Christian, believes in eternal life, or not eternal life, sorry, in eternal preservation, or, you know, that there's the possibility that you can lose your salvation. But I think this passage in Philippians 1 is so clear to me that what God started. God will finish. I wanted to also read, so I mentioned John 10 earlier, also. I just wanted to read some parts of it.
So Jesus, he's speaking to, it's at the Feast of Dedication.
So Jesus is speaking to several Jews, and he says, So they ask him, they say, how long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly, starting in verse 24. And verse 25 of John 10, Jesus answered them, I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me.
I give them eternal life and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one.
So what Jesus is saying here is basically they're asking for a sign. They're saying, just tell us plainly, who are you? Are you God? Are you the Messiah? Just tell us.
And he said, essentially, aren't my works good enough? Aren't the miracles I've shown good enough? Isn't everything I've taught good enough? And he says the real reason they don't believe is because they're not his sheep. And to his sheep, Jesus gives them eternal life.
No question about it. No ifs, ands, or buts, no conditionality, no saying, well, as long as they stay faithful, as long as they do everything I tell them to do, he just says, no. Mm-hmm. I give eternal life to my sheep. The reason you don't believe is you're not part of my sheep.
And for those who have eternal life, he says, No one will snatch them out of my hand, and my father, who has given them to me, Is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the father's hand.
So, Jesus is saying, You can't snatch them out of my hand, you can't snatch him out of the father's hand. It's not saying, you know, what's not teaching modalism here. Jesus isn't saying that he is the father, but he's saying that they are so. Inseparable in terms of their divine will. Nothing can do anything to bring the believer out of God's hand.
You know, like the promises are there, as Michael and Paul, you were talking about, those promises are there, and we can have faith in Christ because He is God, because He. Has the authority, he's been given all authority under heaven and on earth as the man, Christ Jesus, to do all things according to his authority. We have that assurance in Christ, and we really can place trust in him. If I don't, I struggle to understand how one can really have assurance if they believe that their works are part of the equation. You know, I'm a math guy, you know, so if you have an equation, even if you have an equation with 55 terms on it that are all fulfilled by God, if you have one term that is up to you.
and you miss that term, the left side is not going to equal the right side. If the right side is eternal life and the left side is all the conditions required, if one of those terms is missing, it's not equal to the right side. You're not going to have eternal life.
So I don't know how you can really have assurance if it's. Even in the smallest, tiniest bit, a contribution of your works or your efforts or your continued faithfulness, I don't know how you can really be assured that you will have eternal life. Yeah. And the passage you just quoted from Matthew, was it? John.
John 10. John 10. Yeah. It's very emphatic, right? No one can snatch them out of my hand.
No one can snatch them out of the Father's hand. It's a promise and it's emphatic. And so if you're going to say no one or nothing can separate us from the love of God, as Romans says, Right, if you're going to say those things, then The kind of response that I think it was Michael alluded to earlier that we sometimes see from Latter-day Saints, you know, or maybe you, Matthew, said, I can't remember, but. Because I'm getting old, Michael. The response is kind of, oh, well, nothing, nowhere does it ever say that you can't jump out of the Father's hand yourself.
Right, but The implication there, if you said, okay, you could jump out of the Father's hand, or you could jump out of Jesus' hand yourself, you are essentially saying that you are choosing. Satan over God, right? You're choosing to follow. A different leader, right? Which, if you're doing that, then someone.
is snatching you. Out of the father's hand.
So, like I said, that passage in John is just very emphatic. And I don't know how you get around that because you can't say that you could potentially be fallen prey to. To the temptations of the wicked one in such a way that you would lose your salvation, or you can't say that you would be handed over to the buffetings of Satan, as Latter-day Saint teachings say, and still hold to this idea that. No one or nothing could snatch you out of the Father or Jesus' hands.
Well, and to add to that, Paul, not that there's much to add because you said it. Perfectly. But part of the reason that Jesus gives for why no one can snatch. Anyone from the Father's hand is because he's the greatest of all. And that means that if you can snatch yourself out of his hand, you are saying in some sense that you are greater.
Thank God because you are able to break free. And it's kind of like, you know, if I'm, If I'm carrying my kid into the house and he's struggling and he's able to break free, well, that tells you. that my grasp wasn't. Very tight that I was overpowered in some sense and And I just don't think that's true about God at all. I don't think that His grasp can be overpowered or that we can squirm out of it.
Amen. But I did want to do a quick mailbag. We've got a couple of. Like we got a really good message on our Facebook page for the Outer Brightness podcast that I'd like to read through. And then we got a question from a listener as well.
So I'll go to the Facebook page. Message first. This person wants to remain anonymous because they are not ready to go public. But they say, They say, I consider myself a firefly. I love that analogy.
I have been drawn to the biblical gospel. I was raised LBS and I would love to leave, but my family situation makes it hard. My husband wants to stay. We have four kids. Both of our families are all in.
It's tough, as you know. I read Mormon church history and it's clear to me Joseph Smith lied. I have been attending a non-denominational church and my home ward. I'm ready to leave, but it's so tough. Thank you for your podcasts.
They really helped me. I told a friend today that anything I read about non-Mormon Jesus really warms my heart. I thought that was a beautiful message that we received from a listener. And for that listener, I'd just like to let them know that we will be praying for them, for their transition, and for grace and peace to be given to their family through it. That's great.
Amen. Praise God. I feel like. When you're reading that message, that's the kind of person that I think we make all these episodes for. For someone who is struggling, who maybe feels trapped, not sure what to do or where to go.
Maybe they're unsure about what the future is. We each have different experiences leaving the church. And so hopefully our experiences can be a blessing to them and be an encouragement to them wherever it is they go to just rely on Christ and have faith that God's going to, He's going to lead them wherever, you know, wherever they need to go if they just trust in Him.
So yeah, thank you for that message. Yeah, and I was telling Paul before we started recording today, too, that I wish when I'd been going through everything in my My transition out of Mormonism that I'd had. a podcast like this too. To listen to, just to hear some people who've gone through what I'm going through and have made it to the other side. Because when you're having those feelings, and yeah, it is so tough when.
You got you got family issues and you can't. Can't break away, and it's just not an easy thing for any Latter-day Saint. But you feel Totally isolated. And you wonder if you're going to come out of it and ever be okay again. And so I think it is important to see that there are other people who've come out of it and that they are okay.
And that's one thing that I'm going to say. To you, anonymous listener, is that things do get better. And there is definitely a dark tunnel to go through, but there's light on the other side. And we have Jesus, and that's all we need. And that is.
Such a huge comfort, you know, all the loss. That we can go through just cannot even compare to the glory of having that relationship with him.
So, you know, there's definitely something. To look forward to. And coming into Christianity, it's an adventure. And there's a lot of good things that come from that. Yeah, amen.
And as we were planning for and discussing this podcast and its launch. And trying to determine what space we wanted to be in as a podcast. There's a lot of room to make podcasts and talk about topics. And we determined that we wanted to be in the space to reach people. Exactly like anonymous.
And I think we're doing it. We have a pretty loyal listenership of about 100 to 120 people. And we're grateful for all of you. And we've said before, and we'll say it again: we're not here just to gain an audience, we're here to reach people with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so, if you as a listener appreciate what we're doing, if it's meaningful to you, please do share it because we do want to reach more people, but not just for the goal of reaching a bunch of people.
Amen. All right.
So, we also got a question from one of our listeners, and I think. It'll be good to just kind of quickly discuss it. The question is. About the Holy Spirit. And the listener asks.
Do evangelicals believe that the Holy Spirit communicates/slash guides them? And if so, How? How is it different or the same as the LDS view? What are your thoughts there, guys? I would say, I'm I'm sorry, I I wouldn't say absolutely.
Um, I've had it happen to me while I'm writing articles, even. Um, I remember I was writing an article about uh. It's called our our anti-Mormons. Our anti-anti-Mormons Christian in response to an article called Our Anti-Mormons Christian. And in the original draft, I had started to kind of go after some LDS apologist that's written several articles about me.
And as I got to the end of the article, I felt this strong impression. to erase it. All the things that I had said because it was just petty, and there was really no need to do that. And so I've had a lot of different. Experiences like that.
I think as far as which church I decided ultimately was right for me to go to, I think that the Spirit led me. To the right place to go. But I would say that when it comes to the doctrine, that I'm going to believe in. The Bible is my final authority.
So, if I feel like the Spirit is telling me that God is three separate beings, but the Bible is saying something different, that I am having a False spirit or misinterpreting, but the Bible is what I'm going to go with in an instance like that, hypothetically. I agree. I agree with you. What you're saying there.
So, as Christians, we don't believe that.
So, we're not in the same role as prophets and apostles were in the Old and New Testaments, where we're constantly. Constantly receiving new revelation and new, you know, new information. I mean, there are some Christians that disagree with that, but I have strong disagreements with that position also. But so we believe primarily that a lot of the same things actually the Latter-day Saints do believe about the Holy Ghost in terms of what he does. He teaches you, he brings you into all truth.
There's a lot of promises of Christ to the apostles. I think it's in John 14 through 16, something like that. Yeah. three chapters. I think he talks a lot about the promises of the Spirit.
He'd be A comforter, a guide, a helper. He's a counselor. He promised his disciples that he would guide them into all truth. And some people debate as to whether that's just talking specifically of the apostles or of all believers. I think it extends into all believers to where he witnesses to us when we recognize truth.
He helps us to understand and believe truth.
So when we read scripture, we're reading God's word to us. We're reading. God's literal words on the page. And so the Spirit will help us to understand those things.
So in old times with the prophets and apostles, when they would write or speak under the gift of prophecy, it was as if God was speaking through them.
So we don't believe that the gift of prophecy really operates in that same way today. But the Spirit does help us to preach the gospel for those who have that gift. Faithfully, it helps us to understand the scripture and to what God is teaching.
So, I like to make the comparison, and it's the Reformed view: is that rather than being revelation today where God is revealing new things, the Spirit gives us illumination.
So, I like to think of it as a room.
So, if you think of room as like All truth. Revelation is like putting new furniture into the room, you know.
So, God is revealing new truths. About us to him, you know, about himself, about the universe, about existence, and the revelation that we have. There's two sources of revelation: just creation all around us. God reveals truths about himself and about the world through creation, and special revelation, which is the scriptures.
So, that's revelation.
So, today, the spirit isn't really revealing new things, it's just that it's making things already that already have been revealed known to us.
So, going back to the room analogy, revelation is kind of putting new furniture in the room, and illumination is when you walk into a room and it's pitch dark, you can't see any of the furniture. But illumination is turning on the light switch so that you can see all the pieces of furniture in the room.
So, it helps us to understand what God has already revealed through his prophets and apostles. Yeah, thanks, guys. I'll just kind of jump in with my thoughts as well. The listener asks, How is it? Different than or the same as Latter-day Saints.
So I'll kind of Give my thoughts there. Latter-day Saints. Because of certain passages within their scriptures, they tend to think of the role of the latter or of the Holy Spirit to primarily be one of revealing truth, as Matthew kind of touched on, and also like confirming truth to a Latter-day Saint. And they They think of it in terms of feelings a lot of times. And this conversation can get quite heated at times between Latter-day Saints and evangelical Christians who attempt to witness to Latter-day Saints because.
Latter-day Saints place a very high emphasis on these feelings that they believe have communicated to them where truth exists.
So, it's either like a burning in the bosom, or sometimes I've heard Latter-day Saints describe it as the tingling up their spine and into the into the back of their neck that you can sometimes feel.
So, these types of feelings are interpreted by Latter-day Saints to be the Holy Spirit speaking to you. And one of the things that I noticed as I took my detour that I talk about quite often through Sunstone and Dialogue Mormonism, the more liberal version of Mormonism, is that People who go that route, they're moving from a place where the focus on knowing truth was on these feelings to A place where knowing truth comes through evidence, through historical. Uh Documentation. And so they will often downplay, of course, those feelings as well. And it's an interesting transition that you make, right?
You're either learning truth through feelings or you're learning truth through evidence. And so, how does the Holy Spirit work in the life of a believer, a biblical believer? It's not through feelings. I don't rely on feelings. To know where truth is, but that doesn't mean that the Holy Spirit is not guiding me in my studies, in the things that I learn, in my understanding, in having illumination given to my mind as I read scripture.
You know, I've talked about, I talked about today, Philippians 1:6, how that passage. Hit me differently reading it as a post-Latter-day Saint than it did when I read it as a Latter-day Saint. That's the illumination of the Holy Spirit. That's the understanding that comes to your mind.
So there are significant differences. In terms of how Latter-day Saints interpret the The work of the Holy Spirit in one's life. And then I referenced. You know, kind of that liberal version of Mormonism. One of the ways that they, a lot of people who come out of the Latter-day Saint faith, kind of recognize the danger of relying on feelings to.
Represent truth is that many of them have an experience where they will go to a Rock concert, for example, and they will feel that tingling up their spine and into their neck. And really, that's just a feeling that's common to. Humanity, right? You're experiencing something that excites you, and neurologically you have this shiver, right? That's not the Holy Spirit.
That's nerves. And so they experience that in a setting that is not the Latter-day Saint faith and in a setting that surprises them because maybe, you know, a rock concert is considered to be. Maybe something that the devil would be more involved in than the Holy Spirit. And so they experience this in a setting that is different, or maybe it's another religious setting, right? They experience it there.
And so it surprises them and they realize that those feelings are not giving them a barometer of truth.
So, yeah, that's how I would talk about the differences. Yeah, I'm really glad you brought that up. That the Spirit isn't. primarily focusing on feelings. But I was also going to mention too, real quick, that A lot of, you know, one kind of pushback that we'll get from Latter-day Saints is they'll say, well, if you truly have the Spirit and it helps you to understand scripture, why do you still have so many different interpretations of scripture?
Can we blame the Holy Spirit for that? What do you guys think? No. You're on mute, Michael. Better for all of us.
So I was going to say, I mean, yeah, there's there's different interpretations, but as far as interpretations of things that are essential doctrine, there aren't different interpretations of that in Christianity.
So Yeah, I mean, the spirit allowed, I mean, God has allowed us to have different interpretations of things that don't ultimately. You know, affect our salvation or anything like that.
So I don't think that there's really as big of an argument as a Latter-day Saint may think that there is. With that point. Yeah, and I would just gently point to Ephesians. Is it chapter four? Right?
God has given some apostles, some prophets, right? That passage that Latter-day Saints use quite often. But what's kind of the ending part of that passage until? We all come to a unity of the faith, right? And so it's kind of presupposed that there will not be a unity in everything, but that God has given the means.
To bring us to that. And so the fact that there are differences in interpretation does not belie the fact that there's. A problem with the work of God. God is working in believers, bringing us to the truth over time. Right, there may be some different interpretations, but God is working through that to bring us all to a unity of the faith.
That's biblical, it's right there, and I don't think that it works to point to that passage and suggest, oh, see, a lack of unity on every particular means that there's been this great apostasy, and therefore the Latter-day Saint restoration is necessary. I just don't think it works biblically.
Well, and the other thing is, it's a double-edged sword. A Latter-day Saint to say that because, like, we've talked about this entire episode, there's a lot of different stances that Latter-day Saints take. And so, you know, it's kind of a kamikaze tactic to say that because the same issue has. Happens with them, but it's, I'd say, even on a much larger scale, because even with the gospel itself, There are so many different interpretations. But with us, and that was one of the things that really drew me or was appealing to Christianity to me, I would ask.
Christians, you know, how are you saved? And it's always the same clear-cut answer. I didn't have. You know, a hundred different Christians telling me a hundred different things. It was very simple, and I liked that a lot.
One passage I love is 2 Peter 3. I'll just quickly read parts of it. It's kind of like his final words of this epistle. He says, Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish and at peace. And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters.
There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction. as they do the other scriptures. I love that passage because two major things there. I mean, some people say, well, the apostles didn't know what they were writing was scripture. Peter says that the words of Paul are scripture.
So he's recognizing that his fellow apostle and the Lord, what he's writing is inspired. And second of all, he's saying he's admitting, yeah, some things that he writes are not easy to understand.
So that gives me a lot of comfort to know that like, you know, not everything is going to be absolutely plain.
Some people like some traditions like to claim that theirs is the one true tradition that's continued on, you know, since Christ. And like, you know, everything that they taught is what the apostles taught. And I don't think that's really the case. You know, I think they were still, church history shows they were still trying to figure things out. They had this God-breathed scripture.
And it's kind of like, okay, well, figure it out, kind of a thing, you know, it's gonna take time. And through over over the centuries, we have the benefit of. There were a lot of theological issues that came up. And so they had to say, okay, let's go back to scripture, let's see what it says on this particular topic, let's be more clear, let's be more precise in our language, you know, to counter this particular heresy or this particular teaching. In the beginning, it was a very simple faith, you know.
Like when you read the Apostles' Creed, it's a very simple creed that even a lot of Latter-day Saints could probably say amen to. But over time, they had to say, okay, well, we're not all on the same page, so we really got to be clearer here. Anyways, that's kind of another topic though, but I just really like that passage in Peter. Yeah, that's good. Michael, anything final before I close this out?
No, I think we've covered everything really well.
So, yeah, I really appreciate talking to you guys about all this. And again, Matthew, I really liked that article. That was really well done. Fine.
So, one final thought on the question about the Holy Spirit to close us out. We we quoted today from Philippians 1.6. That God who has begun, that Paul trusts that God who has begun a good work in you will bring it through to completion. Mike. The trust and the feeling of trust and reliance that that gives me upon God and understanding that God is working.
In me is the same type of reliance and trust that I have with regards to the Holy Spirit as a believer. I don't need to feel things. To trust that God is working. And I think that's really important to understand. Amen.
We thank you for tuning in to this episode of the Outer Brightness Podcast. We'd love to hear from you. Please visit the Outer Brightness podcast page on Facebook. Feel free to send us a message there with comments or questions by clicking send a message at the top of the page, and we would appreciate it if you give the page a like. We also have an Outer Brightness group on Facebook, where you can join and interact with us and others as we discuss the podcast, past episodes, and suggestions for future episodes, etc.
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You can also connect with Michael the XMormon apologist at fromwatertowine.org. where he blogs and sometimes Paul and Matthew do as well. Music for the Outer Brightness podcast is graciously provided by the talented Brianna Flournoy and by Adams Rode. Learn more about Adams Road by visiting their ministry page at Adamsroad Ministry.com. Stay bright, Fireflies!
Come to me on you, labor and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and I'm holy in high and you will find rest for your soul. For my yoke is easy and my burden. Is God I am the way and the truth. And if you love me, I'll keep my word.
I'll make my home in you. No one comes to the Father but through me. There's nothing and no one else to live. I stand at the door you're hiding behind. Can you hear me are not?
Won't you rest me inside? And you will find rest for your soul. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. I am the way and the truth. And if you love me and keep my word, I'll make my home in the life to set you free.
And now I live so that you will be alive indeed, and you will find rest for your soul.
So For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Yeah. I am the way and the truth. And if you love me and keep my way, then you will find rest for your soul. For my old is easy, and my burden is light.
I am the way and the truth. And if you love me and keep my word, I'll make my home in you. I'll make my home in you in you.
Whisper: parakeet / 2025-07-04 19:39:35 / 2025-07-04 19:41:17 / 2