Passport to Heaven (w/ Micah Wilder of Adam's Road Ministry)

You're Entering Outer Brightness. Hey, Fireflies, Paul here. Brianna and Matthew have the week off. So today Michael and I are joined by a special guest. We're super excited to bring you a conversation with Micah Wilder of the Adams Road Ministry. I was first made aware of Adams Road a decade ago when a friend of mine, Jackie Davidson, linked me to a YouTube video of Micah talking about the beginning of Adams Road.

I was less than a year out from the decision that Angela and I had made to leave the LDS church as a family and to seek Jesus. I watched Micah's video on YouTube late one night and then binged through the Life on Adams Road documentary. Later when we were launching our podcast, I reached out to Micah to ask if Adams Road would be willing to let us use their song, The Cross, as our outro music. And he was so very gracious and gave us permission to use any Adams Road music. So for the past year, our listeners have heard Adams Road at the end of each of our episodes. Again, we're thrilled to have you, Micah.

Welcome to Outer Brightness. Thank you, Paul. Thank you.

It's an honor to be here. Awesome. So I think maybe let's do some quick introductions for Micah's benefit.

Michael, I don't know if you want to go first and then I'll go. Yeah. So I've been out of Mormonism for five years. I actually met you, Micah, when I was still a brand new ex-Mormon in Texas, right?

Yeah. Down there at New Braunfels Bible Church, which is actually my church home now. But yeah, I was like a kid in a candy store walking in there like, oh my gosh, there's these other ex-Mormons and they turned out okay.

They're not broken and all that. So it was actually super nice for me to see you guys and hear your testimony at that time. But yeah, I'd been in the church 32 years, served a two-year mission. Also tried to talk to a couple of pastors out on my mission.

None of them had the same impression as the pastor that you ran into. But yeah, I came back home and I was trying to debate with Christians online, including your mother for me. But yeah, eventually you know, I decided to study grace and learn that the church was false. And I'm just forever grateful to God for pulling me out.

Praise God. So when you went to see us share our ministry at New Braunfels Bible, you had never been there. No, I'd never been there. And that was, so you went there to see us and that's now your home church with pastor, it's Phil, right? Phil Congdon.

Yeah. Pastor Phil's my pastor. He's one of the most grace centered preachers I've ever met in all of our years of traveling and doing ministry. So that's so encouraging. In fact, I think we just arranged, I think we're coming back to your church this year. I just saw an email in the booking from Pastor Phil and I think that he and Matt just got something finalized. Oh, that's awesome. If that's the case, then I will see you guys whenever you come back down. Very cool.

All right. So Micah, I'm Paul. I have been out of the LDS church since 2010. Served a two-year mission in Hungary from 97 to 99. And during that time had an encounter with a Baptist missionary couple.

Just one afternoon, tracked it into their apartment. They let us in, they preached grace to us. And I left that meeting with them, kind of shook knowing that they were offering something very different than what I had received to that point in my life from the LDS church. That area of my mission was rough. I was very much caught up in like the bureaucracy of the LDS church. I was asked to serve as the branch financial clerk there in that small city and asked to get the finances kind of back in order.

They were like four months in arrears of being balanced and everything. And so, I spent a lot of my time not doing missionary work. And so, it was kind of had me down. And so, that encounter with that Baptist missionary couple was kind of a bright spot in that area of my mission. And it kind of pushed me into reading the New Testament in kind of the rest of that area and then my last area of my mission following that. And as I started to do that and reading through Paul and reading through all of what Jesus says, not just select passages, started to see some major differences. And then I came home, met my wife, moved out here to the Cincinnati area, and kind of went online and started to try to better understand my LDS faith and encountered some of the difficulties that come up, polygamy and Joseph Smith lying and all of that kind of stuff. And it put me into a pretty bad spiral and faith crisis to where I was like, man, I don't think I believe in God anymore.

I feel like I've been lied to. And then from there, decided I was just going to build on Jesus. He was going to be my foundation. And if I was going to have faith, I was going to rebuild my faith on Him and tried to do that for the next about decade of my life within the LDS church to the point where, reached a point in 2010 where I realized neither myself nor my wife were growing in Christ within the LDS church. And we needed to go somewhere where we could and where we would hear the truth preached every week.

And so, we left in 2010. Wow, that's an incredible story. So were there, in the things that you learned and were reading in the New Testament towards the end of your mission, did any of those things trigger something in you that indicated that the church institutionally wasn't true? Or was it just simply you were kind of learning things that were developing your own personal relationship with Christ?

A little bit of both. But I think what really came to the fore in those final months of my mission was realizing how much of the Book of Mormon relies on like the epistles of Paul for some of its language and that type of thing. And so, seeing that kind of clear in front of me, it really started to raise questions in my mind that were already kind of there about the Book of Mormon to the point where when I was done with my mission, I came home, you know, signed up to Farms Journal of Book of Mormon Studies and was really looking to try to find, okay, where's the archeological evidence that the Book of Mormon is actually an ancient document? But it was still, you said, 10 years from that point to where you finally left off the precipice and fully clung to Jesus. Right. Yeah, I kind of took a detour through more progressive type Mormonism, like what you would see with like John de Linn now or Sunstone or Dialogue and tried to make that kind of work for me. And ultimately that left me empty as well. Yeah.

Yeah. Me and Paul were a little bit more stubborn than you. It took us a little longer for the message to penetrate. I think, you know, I say that I think I was too stubborn and God had to throw me off of a cliff.

That's kind of how I see it. He didn't even give me the opportunity to take that detour. He just pushed me off the cliff and enforced me to trust Him. But I appreciate both your testimonies. And Michael, I mean, I've known your story for a while and I even remember listening to you and my mother have that radio interview. I think that was based out of like London or something, right?

It was in England several years ago. And it's just amazing how the Lord works. And obviously He's lit a fire under you for ministry and the stuff you do online and everything else in your own book now. I mean, it's just really love you brother and appreciate your testimony. So I'm encouraged to, you know, I do a lot of interviews and other things, but doing it with people who are our former Latter-day Saint now Christians is to me, it's a special opportunity to be able to connect with brothers in Christ to, you know, have walked that same path.

It doesn't really matter the detours we took along the way. I mean, ultimately we were, you know, bound and legalism and now we're set free in Christ. And so we really have the same story and it's just a matter of, you know, praising God because of it. So. So Michael, most of our listeners are probably familiar with your story, but for those who may not be, and without giving away too much from your soon to be published memoir, can you briefly tell us how God led you from Mormon to Jesus? Yeah.

Yeah. So, so I was born and raised in a very devout Mormon home, actually in the Midwest, in the state of Indiana. And then my freshman year of high school, my family moved to Utah and my mother became a professor at BYU. And so naturally we became very entrenched in the culture of Mormonism. And so I went on a mission at 19 and I was sent to Orlando, Florida, and I was, I was just a very devout, very passionate, zealous young Mormon missionary went out trying to make converts. And I believed with all my heart that the LDS church was everything that it claimed to be. I had a, I had what I thought was an unshakable testimony in each of the five principle pillars of Mormonism. And, uh, I took that testimony to the doorsteps of a Baptist church where I attempted to convert a Baptist pastor, um, sincerely believing that he didn't have the fullness of the gospel as I believe that the, the church was offering me. And so I sat down with this, this pastor, his name was Alan Benson, uh, shared our belief system with him and his response to me was something unique and something life-changing and it was simply to, uh, read the Bible like a child.

And, and, and he shared the gospel with me in a way that I had never before heard. And then the simplicity that the work of Christ on the cross was, was perfect and complete and was sufficient to bring me into a right standing with God and that I could have the guarantee of my salvation independent of Mormonism or of any of my own merits or works or righteousness that were established through the laws and ordinances of this religious institution. And, um, and that salvation was a free gift to be received by faith.

And, and so as a Mormon, as you know, this was, this was a message that was in complete contradiction to everything that I'd ever been taught my entire life. And of course I believe that Jesus died for my sins. I believe that, uh, his, his death on the cross was necessary for my salvation, but I only believe that it was part of a much greater whole of which I needed to contribute, um, my own, you know, righteousness and works to that. And so he sent me back with this challenge to read the new Testament through the eyes of a child, to put away my preconceived notions and to allow God through his word, to show me his truth. And so I spent the rest of my mission throughout the state of Florida, reading the new Testament daily.

And in total, in about 20 months time, I read the new Testament 12 times from cover to cover. Um, and that's what God used to, to transform my life. And, uh, I wish I could say, well, I just had one great epiphany and everything made sense, but it was, as you probably know, it was a very slow, uh, transformation process for me of God using, you know, his, his word to, to begin to wash my eyes and, and, and, and wash the blindness away and reveal to me the immeasurable riches of, of his grace and kindness in Christ Jesus, and show me that, that Jesus was the only thing that could bring me satisfaction with God and could reconcile me to God. And I didn't need all of these other manmade elements of this religious system to be saved and to be forgiven, but that I could have the assurance of my eternal life through the work of Christ. And so I ended up getting saved, uh, toward the very end of my Mormon mission.

I had about three weeks left. And, uh, of course that brought a lot of, uh, very interesting storylines into my life and I'll kind of save some of that, but, uh, suffice it to say, um, Christ rescued me. He brought me salvation and, uh, and I was born again through, through the living and abiding word of God.

And I praise God for, for saving a wretch like me. And, and as much as I fought the things that he was teaching me through his word, that he'd never let go of me. And he loved me with, with an unconditional love that even when I was his enemy, he sent Christ to die for me. And, and that that was the manifestation of his love was, was Christ's, um, death for me on the cross. And so, uh, God began to do an amazing work in the lives of my friends and family members and other people that, uh, you know, eventually came to faith as well.

Praise God. You know what, uh, amazes me about your story because us guys here at outer brightness, we had it really easy cause we came to faith, uh, after our missions and we were away from our families and everything. And just thinking about you, you, uh, being born again as a, as an LDS missionary, when you've got the most amount of scrutiny and the most pressure from family, what was it like being born again during that time? And, and was there a conflict between still being an LDS missionary and, and knowing the truth at that point?

Oh, absolutely. And I think that the, the challenging thing for me was that I didn't really know how far I had come until I looked back at where I began. So it wasn't like as I was learning things, reading the new Testament, I, you know, automatically began to question the church or the fundamental teachings of the church. It was just more of a development of my own personal relationship with God through Christ and a recognition of how deep his love was for me. And it wasn't really until the very end, actually through reading the book of Hebrews that I came to realize that there was a dissonance there.

And that dissonance was that Christ came and he fulfilled the elements of the old law that no longer have any bearing on our righteous standing before God. And once I realized that the priesthood and the prophets and the role of the high priest and the temples and all of these elements that were specific to pointing and foreshadowing the coming of Christ, that once he fulfilled that, there was no longer any need for them. And that's really when the light bulb came on and I realized, okay, now I've got three weeks left on my mission. I'm the most zealous Mormon missionary that perhaps has ever existed.

And now I know with, with a certainty that the church itself is not true. And that was really a challenging position to be in because I knew that I could no longer serve two masters and I knew that I could no longer continue. And in fact I remember just kind of very fervently praying to God and asking him, what do I do now? Like, how do I come forward to my, my leadership, my friends, my family about this change that you've made in my life? And his response and his answer to that prayer was for me to share what he had done in my life and my final departing testimony.

And that was kind of the, the domino that, that started to knock everything over at that point. And but I praise God that he gave me the strength, you know, to be able to, to witness of my faith even when I was in that situation of being you know, such a, a faithful Mormon missionary. Right. So you were the first of the Wilders to be born again. Tell me about your family's response when they learned what happened to you on your mission.

Yeah. So I think that the, the good thing is that God had been preparing their hearts, I think even long before my mission, but even throughout my mission, because as I was undergoing this transformation, I was kind of sharing tidbits with them through my weekly emails. And although it wasn't necessarily direct, it was certainly kind of a foreshadow of what God was doing in my heart and where my life was leading. And my dad now talks about like how when he was reading my missionary letters, he kept telling my mom, this sounds like, this sounds like Paul, the apostle, because my, even my language was changing to be more Christ centered, more new Testament centered and more grace centered. And so I think he was kind of preparing them, but, but the point of actually getting to the point at the end of my mission where I was sent home and my mission concluded early, I think that was a shock to my parents.

It was a shock to my siblings. My younger sister and one of my older brothers, they were very open to my challenge to read the new Testament. They, they really didn't put any judgment or condemnation on me. I think they, they knew that God had done something marvelous in my life.

And I think they wanted to know more about what he had done. My parents, I think were scared, confused, but I think they were also curious because I had kind of been there, you know, esteemed Mormon son who had worked so hard to, you know, establish my zeal for Mormonism throughout my life. And so I think that they saw that I had an emphasis on Christ that I had never before had. And I think that that really propelled them into investigating more of what God was doing in my life, which eventually led them to the new Testament and ultimately to salvation.

Tim Weiss Yeah. I love that, especially how you said that God was preparing their hearts, because I think it's one thing that, that ex-Mormons, especially when we're newly out, you know, we worry so much about how's our family going to react to this and is, am I going to be able to maintain that relationship? And ultimately, how am I going to, you know, how am I going to help them see that they're not in the, in the true church? So I'd like to hear kind of your experience about, like, what did you learn about interacting with and responding with LDS families? Like, is there anything in particular that we can do that you would recommend?

Tim Weiss Certainly. For one, one of the mistakes that we see a lot when people are engaging LDS friends and family members is that they're, they're too blunt when they're dealing with certain aspects of Mormonism and, and putting ourselves back in our own shoes, right? When we were faithful members of the LDS church, I think there's certain subjects that are very sensitive to Mormons, you know, the character of Joseph Smith, you know, certain historical things, you know, the temple, things that are, are easy for them to, to be offended by and therefore put up a wall. And so when we're dealing with or encouraging people dealing with Latter-day Saints, we always tried to keep the focus emphasized on the gospel, on the Word of God and on the grace of God.

And, and I think that it helps have a better dialogue with people rather than putting them in situations where they're immediately going to put up barriers. And I think that the other thing that is important for all Christians and for transitioning, you know, ex-Mormons to understand is ultimately you have to find your identity in Christ. And ultimately you have to be willing to lose the things and the people that you love in order to follow Jesus of Nazareth. And I got to that point as a Mormon missionary. I knew that if I was forthright about everything that God had done in my life, it was going to change my relationships. It was going to change my future.

It was going to change the very fabric of the things that I loved and the person that I was. And that's such a crucial part of discipleship is taking up our cross and following Jesus and losing our life so that we can find it. And so I want to encourage, you know, if there's people that are going through that process we have to understand that Christ has to be the sufficiency of our every need. And if that means losing relationships to follow Jesus, then, then so be it. But we need to lose relationships because we're lovingly right. And boldly proclaiming the gospel, not because we're deliberately offending people by, by, you know, creating situations that cause them to be needlessly offended.

Yeah. Thank you for that. A couple of things that you said really resonated with me.

One is reading the book of Hebrews. We've had conversations on outer brightness about how that that book especially has impacted all three of us. And, you know, the other was just you know, thinking about what you said about, you know, we have to be willing to give up everything. You know, the words of Paul the Apostle, that show up in your in your song of the cross, are just so powerful, you know, those those words have become kind of a rallying cry for me, you know, after I left the LDS Church, because you're right, you know, as as Latter Day Saints, if we leave, we do have to be willing to give up everything, including relationships with family, because that may be the result. But but ultimately, you know, we hope that we respond in love. And I think you gave some good advice there as well.

So thank you for that. So let's talk a little bit about your book. What was it like to revisit your journey in the form of writing and did God teach you anything new through that process?

Yeah, yeah, it was. It was a challenging experience for me. And it was a long experience. In fact, I, when I returned to Florida immediately after my two year mission in January of 2006, I actually started writing my book that same week. I felt very compelled by the Holy Spirit to begin to to write my story, and to communicate what God had done. And even the conversations and things that had happened with my mission president and others that had I not immediately written those things down.

I mean, I probably would have forgotten them over time. So it's pretty amazing how meticulous I was about journal keeping and other things. And so I began that process and I worked on it on and off for 15 years. And every time that I went back to it, God was continually teaching me things, even about my own story that I didn't understand. And as we're continuing to grow in the knowledge and grace of Christ, right, as we continue to go through that process of sanctification as Christians, I was going through that personally, therefore, my ability to convey my story also grew and mature, and allowed me to see things in a way that I didn't fully understand, you know, at the time. And so I think that the way that God had me write it, and the way that it worked out, maybe some of my own foolishness and my own procrastination, that sometimes expanded several years ended up being to the benefit, I think, of this whole experience.

And, but I'm really happy with the way that it turned out. And it's actually unique in the sense that it's not really like a lifelong memoir. And it's not really about me.

It's not about people getting to know me as a human being or my likes or dislikes. It's about Mormon missionary that comes to know Jesus. And it really only encompasses the two years of my Mormon mission from the very beginning to the day that I leave. And so that is the story. And it's about how the gospel transformed the life of a young Pharisee. All right, that's awesome.

That's super exciting. When is the book going to be released? And how can our listeners get a copy of that? So the book officially comes out on June 2nd, 2021.

And they can get anywhere books are sold on Amazon, christianbook.com or anywhere else. All right. So now we continue the conversation for the podcast. Leaving the LDS church can be painful. Micah, can you talk a little bit about how that pain manifested in your journey?

Yeah. I think that the most challenging and painful aspect of it for me was when I was reading the book of Hebrews and I read, I think it was beginning in chapter seven. And I think in the LDS quad, they have the chapter titles and it says Melchizedek priest had explained or something like that.

And for some reason that caught my eye. And so I read chapter seven, I read chapter eight, I read chapter nine, I read chapter 10 and something happened, like something clicked in my mind and my heart and my eyes and the spirit just took away the blindness, right? Remove that veil to where I was able to see the fulfillment of Christ, right? The sufficiency of Christ. That's the element that the writer of Hebrews is so desperately trying to convey is the sufficiency of Christ and the supremacy of Christ. And when I came to realize that, I realized that the core elements that I had put so much of my heart and life into in Mormonism were false, right?

They were a false foundation. And in fact, I had been a full time temple worker before I went on my two year mission. I ended up getting my, receiving my endowments a couple months before I was to leave on my mission. And I spent six weeks working full time as a veil worker in the temple and the amount of time and energy and effort that I was pouring into believing that this was the place where I could connect with God. And these prophets and these men were the one that speak and were intercessors between me and God. And to realize that Christ was the fulfillment of all those things, right? That he is now our intercessor, our only intercessors, as Paul says, that there's one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, and that he is the temple of God. The body of Christ is now the temple. I individually am the temple of God, a house of the Holy Spirit, right?

A living stone being built into a spiritual house, all these things. It was hard to come to the realization that I had invested so much of my heart, so much of my life, so much of my testimony, so many tears into elements that were not truth. And I think that that was the most difficult thing for me doctrinally. And I think from a more worldly perspective, I was just afraid of losing my status. And again, I was only 21 years old. It's not like I was an apostle or anything like that, but I had a scholarship to BYU.

My mother was a world-renowned professor at BYU. I'd served a faithful mission. I had been a full-time temple worker. I mean, I had established a reputation amongst my family, my friends, my community for my zeal. And the prospect of losing that and losing what people thought about me was terrifying to me. And I know that's a selfish thing, but it's reality. I was afraid of what was going to happen to those relationships with my immediate family, with my friends, my girlfriend.

And I mean, I wouldn't be able to return to BYU. My life was going to change. And having to accept that and trust that God would see me through that. And that if I had him, I had everything that I needed. I think that got me through that fear and uncertainty of what the future was going to bring. Yeah, that's awesome.

Thanks for that answer. I really resonated with you there. I think all of us as ex-Latter-day Saints have to go through that process of kind of realizing like John the Baptist did, right?

He must increase and I must decrease. And it can be difficult for us at times because of some of the teachings we receive as Latter-day Saints that kind of puff us up and give us the sense of, we want to build a reputation. We want to build a facade of faithfulness. And yeah, I think we all have to go through that. So interesting to hear you say that as well. Thank you.

Yeah. And it's definitely a thing that we go through as far as fear too. There's a lot of fear involved with leaving the church and everything that you're going to lose as far as family relationships.

I found that family can be a pretty big idol. I was going to ask you Micah, throughout your journey, have you ever had periods of doubt or second-guessing yourself? And if so, how did God pull you through that? That's a good question.

Honestly, no. In particular, as it relates to leaving Mormonism, I had such a profound and tangible and life-changing experience as a missionary through the Word of God. And I came to know the love and the grace of Christ in a way that was so life-changing that I knew that nothing could ever offer me that. That was the thing that I walked away from my mission being able to say unequivocally was that Jesus was enough for me. And I know that's kind of become the theme of our ministry.

Jesus is enough, but it's not just a catchy phrase. It's to come to know the all-sufficiency of Christ, to satisfy every need and to offer us something that the world can never give us. And once I had tasted the bread of life and drank the living water and had rivers of living water flowing out of my heart and been filled with the Holy Spirit and brought to newness of life and died to my old self, I knew that I couldn't ever have anything in this world that would ever satisfy me in the way that Jesus Christ had. Now, there's certainly been, I would say that the areas of doubt where I have struggled, and it's never really been a doubt of faith, but it's been a doubt of myself. And that I think there's kind of this mentality that when I become a Christian that I should just be better, right? I should be a better person and everything should get good and it should be easier to resist sin and do all these other things. And you get 10, 15 years down the road and you still see the weakness of your flesh mocking you and you still see yourself do things that are not something that somebody in Christ should be doing. And you start to go, man, like, am I really saved? Like, you know, have I really been born again?

Like, why am I doing these things? And the encouragement for me has always been reading Paul's lament in Romans seven, right? Or he says, oh, wretched man that I am who will deliver me from this body of death.

He said, you know, I do the very things that I hate and I don't do the things that I should do that I want to do. But thanks be to God that we have victory in Christ. And that victory is that there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And so that's an important reminder for me that this life as a Christian is a constant process of sanctification and I'm not there yet. And I continually make mistakes and I continually see Satan trying to discourage me from faithfully following Christ or letting my sin get in the way of me being able to faithfully serve Christ and to be reminded of how deep God's well of grace is, that when Christ suffered and bled and died on the cross, that he paid not in part, not mostly, but in full the penalty that I owe to God and that those sins have been washed clean by the blood of Christ. And I stand clothed in his righteousness before God to where I can be declared not guilty because of what Christ has done. And that's just been an encouragement to me not to lose faith and to not be discouraged by the weakness of my flesh. That's beautiful.

I appreciate you sharing that. And I think that's going to be really meaningful for a lot of excellently saints. I think a lot of us struggle with those same kind of thoughts. I know that I do, you know, I've only been out five years now, but to me that's long enough. And I find myself kind of saying, okay, God, I know there's supposed to be this sanctification thing that comes after salvation.

So where, where is that? And but yeah, I have to realize a lot of the same things too, and definitely amazing where God's taken us. And I know that he is faithful to finish the work that he begins in us as well. I want to talk a little bit about the Adams Road ministry. How did that come about? So I completed my mission in January of 2006 and immediately following my mission, there were four other young men, one of them, my brother, another one who is a missionary that I served with that all left the Mormon church, became born again through the word of God. And we all had a similar passion and that passion was music. And we felt called to take our musical gifts and to begin to share what God had done in our lives through song.

And of course at that time we were brand new Christians. We had a lot of growing and a lot of maturing to do, but as we matured and grew in the knowledge and grace of Christ, we began to center our ministry and our music on the word of God. And so we began to take the scriptures, literally the scriptures and to reconcile them and to put them into music in a way that we felt like there were just not a lot of people doing. And that so much of the kind of contemporary Christian music scene was filled with so much music that wasn't really the word of God. And we wanted other people to have the same life transforming experience that we had.

And that was to be born again through the word of God. And we knew how powerful the word of God was, that it's living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword. And so we said, well, what more powerful words can we have than to take God's literal word and put it into music and to use that as a vehicle to share the gospel. So we began doing that. And so we've been doing it for 15 years now. Our ministry members have changed over the years, but you know, our purpose is not, we've done 10 full length albums just filled with the word of God. We distribute all of our music and all of our materials for free.

And we travel all over North America each year, about four to five months visiting churches and encouraging and equipping the church to fulfill their purpose, which is to go out and make disciples and to encourage them with our testimonies and to proclaim the good news of Christ. Yeah. Beautiful. Amen.

Yeah. You know, there's definitely growing pains as we started outer brightness and kind of started doing things. I know I definitely felt spiritually attacked during those early months when we were recording and figuring out how to edit episodes and get them posted online. And as we've kind of gone forward there's been things we've learned and just you know, thankful to God that, that your ministry that He's been faithful to bless your ministry and ours as well. So one of the things that, that I've appreciated about your ministry as I've followed you over the years is, is that you keep first things first. And by that, I mean that, that there's a lot of ways that LDS teachings veer away from biblical teachings and there's many issues with LDS church history as we know. But you place the preaching of the gospel to Latter-day Saints front and center. Why do you focus on the gospel and why not get involved with pointing out other doctrinal errors of the LDS church? That's a good question.

It's a question we get a lot. My, my, my simple answer to that would be Romans 1 16 for I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God into salvation to everyone who believes the gospel is what saves ultimately. So knowing that Joseph Smith was a false prophet doesn't save anybody. It may be part of the road that they need to travel to get to salvation, but ultimately the gospel is what saves.

That is what people need to hear in order to have eternal life. And so our goal, our purpose, right? Our mission is as any Christian's mission should be, is the fulfillment of the great commission, right? Is the proclamation of the good news of Christ to go out to all creation and, and, and to, to proclaim the good news. And so we emphasize the word of God and we emphasize the gospel of Christ because that's what transformed us.

And, and it's not to downplay what many ministries do, which is, you know, God uses all sorts of means to bring people out of darkness and into his marvelous light. But ultimately coming out of Mormonism is not the goal. Coming to Christ is the goal. And as you know, and as I know, and as we have seen plenty over the last, in particular the last five years, there are hordes of people leaving Mormonism, but many of those people are not coming to biblical Christianity to a faith in the biblical Christ. And it's because I think so many of them are leaving Mormonism because they see the fallacy of the religion, but they're not seeing the truth and the truth is Jesus.

He is the way, the truth and the life, and the only way to the father. And so we're going to continue to lovingly and boldly proclaim the grace of God, the truth of God, because there in is the salvation that brings people to eternal life. And so we tell people our ministry, like our purpose is not to bring people out of Mormonism. Our ministry is to bring people to a saving relationship with Christ. And I can tell you with a certainty that when people come to a true saving relationship with Christ and they're born again, they will leave the Mormon church. As you know, as Michael knows, you can try to stay in it as long as you want. My parents tried to do that, but eventually you come to realize that you can't serve two masters, that knowing grace removes you from legalism and eventually that'll draw you out of the Mormon church. And so that's been our emphasis and will continue to be so. Yeah.

Thank you for that. There's the old adage that you often hear from Latter-day saints that people can leave the LDS church, but they can't leave the LDS church or it's those people alone. So Michael, why can't you leave Mormons alone? You know, I used to take offense to that statement, but now I actually I'm encouraged by it because I don't want to leave Mormons alone. And it's because I love them.

I mean, it's as simple as that. It's like saying, Paul, why don't you leave the Jews alone? And Paul would say, it's because I love them.

Right. And one of my favorite and kind of driving ministry passages for the last 15 years has been what Paul said to the Romans in Romans 10, one through four, talking about the Jews. And he says, my heart's desire for them is that they may be saved for. I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge for being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God and seeking to establish their own.

They did not submit to God's righteousness for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. So I think for every ex Latter-day Saint who now is a follower of Christ, that is our motivation. That is our impetus for what we do is we love the Mormon people. And if we didn't love them, we would leave them alone. But true love is seeing people in darkness and proclaiming the truth to them. And so I think that it's okay to not leave them alone because I don't want them to stay where they are because that's where I once was.

And that's in darkness. And I want them to be removed from that darkness. I want that veil to be taken from their eyes. And I want them to see the glorious gospel of the grace of God that's been revealed in Christ Jesus. And for them to be born again and saved and brought into eternal life as I do every group of people from any background in any part of the world.

But I obviously have a particular heart for the Mormon people because I was once there. I'm just so thankful to God too for all the people in all of our lives that made a difference that didn't just take that mindset of I'm just going to leave him alone. The pastor that you tried to convert didn't just say, well, you know, he looks like he's in a bad mood now.

I'm just going to let him leave, but actually came back and gave you that challenge to read the Bible with the eyes of a child. And, you know, I don't look back at any of these people and disparage them and say, why couldn't they have just left me alone? I just say, thank you, God. Thank you, Jesus, for sending these people relentlessly after me. I think that's one of the biggest mistakes that we see Christians make is they see Mormons or the Mormon missionaries walking down the street and they don't bother sharing the gospel with them because they've already predetermined in their mind that they're not going to receive it or accept it or that God can't save somebody like that. And so that's one of the encouraging things that we're trying to do through our testimonies. And I know, you know, you and Paul are doing as well as God can save these people and he does and he will. But our our our calling in Christ is to preach the gospel. How are they to hear unless someone preaches and how can they preach unless they are sent right? Faith comes through hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.

And so we have this this amazing obligation as Christians to take the word of God that has transformed our lives and to share it with those who don't know it. And that's Mormons. That's Muslims. That's Jehovah's Witnesses. That's, you know, atheists.

It's anybody and everybody who doesn't know the grace of God. Absolutely. All right.

So one final question for you. And yes, this is your chance to plug anything you've got coming up. Covid put a halt to pretty much everything having to do with normal life. But what can you share about what's coming down with Adam Road? Do you have anything planned as far as upcoming tours? Yeah, so actually are excited to say that we will be touring in 2021.

We took 2020 off obviously because of the Covid situation that has impacted our world. But we're excited that in June we'll be leaving. We'll be getting on the Adams Road tour bus and we'll be traveling throughout the United States for about four months. We'll be going all over the US to I think 40 plus states.

And so just encourage you to go to AdamsRoadMinistry.com. Our calendar is on our website. All of our events are free.

All of our music is for free. We have all types of free materials you can get there. And we will also be bringing my upcoming book, Passport to Heaven, on the road with us. So if you want to get one in person, we'd love to see you and be encouraged.

Micah, thank you so much for making the time to spend with us tonight and for your flexibility in your schedule and working it out. We appreciate that. Fireflies, that's a wrap for this episode of Outer Brightness. Feel free to share your thoughts in the Outer Brightness Facebook group. Go listen to Adams Road music. It's beautiful. It's inspiring.

And it's free. So consider supporting Adams Road Ministry. The work that they do is very important.

I know that they make a huge impact for the Kingdom of God as they tour around the country and especially as they get into the Mormon corridor and have the opportunity to play for Latter-day Saints. So next week we're going to be bringing you a discussion that we had with Matt Wilder. He came on the show to discuss what he's doing with Adams Road piano, which powerfully combines scripture with his piano compositions. Until then, shine bright fireflies. We thank you for tuning into 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. You can also send us an email at outerbrightness at gmail.com.

We hope to hear from you soon. You can subscribe to the Outer Brightness podcast on Apple Podcasts, Cast Box, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Pod Music, Spotify, and Stitcher. Also, you can check out our new YouTube channel, and if you like it, be sure to lay hands on that subscribe button and confirm it. If you like what you hear, please give us a rating and review wherever you listen and help spread the word. You can also connect with Michael the Ex-Mormon apologist at fromwater2wine.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 Road. Learn more about Adams Road by visiting their ministry page at adamsroadministry.com.

Stay Bright, Flyer Flies! The word made French, the risen Son. Heaven and earth will pass away, but the word of our God through ages remains. Lord, you promised that we as your church would remain upon this rock, and the gates of hell will not prevail against us.

Cause you have power to keep your word unspoiled in purity. Heaven and earth will pass away, but the word of the Lord endures forever. All this world is in decay, but the word of our God through ages remains. As the rain falls down from heaven, and waters the earth, bringing it life.

So the word that comes out of your mouth will not return empty, but does what you desire. Lord, we hear your word and believe in you. Heaven and earth will pass away, but the word of the Lord endures forever. All this world is in decay, but the word of our God through ages remains. The word of God remains.