Welcome to Passion for Christ, a ministry of Utah Partnerships for Christ. In Acts 26, 18, Jesus said, Paul's purpose was to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God. That they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me. We hope you'll join us for today's testimony of lives changed by the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Now let's begin today's episode. Welcome to Passion for Christ. I'm with my friend Rusty Dunbar, and we're just going to talk about Rusty's journey out of the Mormon church to Christ alone. And so, maybe if you're new to the program, this is the program where we talk about how people have been miraculously saved out of a system of religion that might look like it's Christian on the outside. But, Rusty, let me ask you: when you were Mormon, was it a thing where you were like a kid and you grew up in the Mormon church?
Well, I sort of did, Russ. And thank you for having me on. Thank you for what you're doing at AM820 the Truth. We really appreciate it. Sure.
But yeah, my parents weren't particularly religious. Uh they So when I was about two years old. I was actually christened in the Methodist church in Kansas where my mother lived, but we were living in Colorado at the time. And um They um Yeah. you know, went back to Boulder and about a year later.
Um they were contacted by the the the Mormon missionaries and about six or eight months later, they joined the church.
So when I was about three years old, and I don't remember much except for the fact that I knew I grew up in the church and Um You know, I went to primary and Sunday school and Did all those things as I grew up, and I grew up in Boulder, Colorado. During the 50s and 60s, and it was a wonderful time. I had a wonderful childhood. Um It was just a great time in American's history in America's history, wasn't it? After the war, there was such a great attitude I felt as I was growing up.
In the nation, and going to church, it was it was not a it it was it was fun for me growing up with my friends and stuff. But um Yeah, we grew up in a ward that um Older that was full of educators and Scientists, we had doctors, we had two world-renowned physicists in our ward. Um, so it was a very educated uh uh award group that that um I was in.
So as I grew up, everything was good. It was positive. I I heard testimonies from these people. um who knew a heck of a lot more than I did at the time. And they all said that the church was true, and who was I to doubt that?
So it was very interesting. For me. Um I do remember, Russ, an interesting Uh story. I was probably 12 or 13. at the time and we were coming home from Sunday school and I remember at us we were at a stoplight and dad was driving our station wagon and my mom turned around and said, What did you learn in Sunday school today?
And I said I learned today that God was not. God from the beginning, but he had a father and His dad had a father. I don't understand. Right. And she She turned around and she says, Well, you know, we don't understand these things, but once we get to the celestial kingdom.
All those questions will be answered. She said, just just uh Put it on your shelf and don't think about it. Right. That was interesting because. You know, Russ, I I didn't know there was a shelf.
And suddenly it was personalized and it was My shelf. Right. And so From that day on, any little questions I had, I would just, yeah, I'd put it on the shelf.
So, um After a lifetime of service, That shelf gets pretty crowded. Right. And heavy, heavy, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I remember I went to New Zealand on my mission and I remember I was there only a couple of weeks and my district leader wanted me to give a first discussion.
about Joseph Smith's first vision. And so I memorized it and stuff, and I was giving it to Mr. Brown, and so um. Told him that it was a beautiful spring day and 1820 and Joseph Smith saw God and Jesus and he stopped me right there and he goes, What wait, what did you say? I says, It was a beautiful spring day in 1820.
And he said, No, no, When? When was it in? April, was it in May? And I turned to my district leader and I said, when was it? And he says, well, we don't know.
And the guy says, Are you kidding? Um If God and Jesus were to come to me. I'd know what color shirt I had on, the day, the time of day. I'd know everything. How come he didn't know?
And I didn't I didn't have a clue.
So that was another thing that I put on that shelf. And those are kinds of experiences I think all members of the church go through during their lifetime. They don't have the answers to a lot of these questions, and so they'll just put them on their shelf and move on.
So that's where I was. I don't know. I I just you know I started you know you fast forward to like 2006, I remember I started reading the Bible. Because I always thought that the Bible was Not translated correctly, as the eighth article of faith says that we believe the Book of Mormon to be believed the Bible to be the Word of God as far as it's translated correctly. We also believe the Book of Mormon to be the Word of God.
So I had that memorized, and so every time I'd read something that was kind of cool, I'd say, hmm, maybe that wasn't translated correctly.
So it gives you a jaundiced eye on everything you read. But yeah, and I thought I'd set that aside and just Start reading. And it was a wonderful experience. Oh, my goodness. Right.
So, um, Yeah.
So that's sort of my story. And I remember. Reading And getting finished this one day, I've just got up. throw them the kitchen table and And I thought, you know, this is. This is truth.
Right. It was, it was sort of binary, Russ. It was like. You got an apple here. Then you've got an apple over here.
You got two apples. It's the truth. But it's not emotional. Such as a feeling in the book. Yeah, the feeling thing comes in, right?
That's a big part of the Mormon concepts there of how they determine truth. They take that road to Emmaus account with Jesus talking to the two guys, you know, after his resurrection, and they think that the feelings, just in and of themselves, have some kind of confirmation of truth, whereas it was because Jesus was opening up the scriptures to them that their heart was so moved.
So they get things totally reversed. Yeah. That's a wonderful way to put it because it was, they had those feelings of truth. Because he was revealing the scripture to them.
So, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Wow. And so then as time went on, who shared the gospel with you? Was it like a co-worker?
Was it your now wife, you know, at the time? Was I was a friend or something? Or just a buddy at work or school? Or how did that all come about? It was.
We have a good friend. He's still our good friend. He was one of my distributors out of Colorado and We went snowmobiling one day. and had a great time. And he was he was cringe.
And he knew I was LBS, and I was out in my truck. We said our goodbyes, and he goes, Hey, Rusty, just one thing. I got something.
So he went to his truck and he brought out this little. This little cartoon-like little pamphlet, little thing. And it said on the outside, it says, are you a good person? And I said, thanks. Thanks.
I'll see you later. And I read that and I just threw it on the floor of the truck, took off. He didn't think anything of it. Um because in our church we have beautiful panties. We have really nice things to hand out, you know?
Yeah. And I thought, it's yeah, okay.
So and um I think it was a couple of days later I saw it on the floor and I was cleaning my truck and I so I opened it and read it and It was a simple, beautiful message, and by what it was saying in that little pamphlet. No, I wasn't born to heaven. Right. Wait.
So that sort of got me interested. And when we would work together, uh he would bring up uh his experiences in the Christian church and he would ask me about mine and all that kind of stuff. Very, very patient. And so I think that was a catalyst to Get me interested. And, you know, it says that God's word will not go.
I mean, it gets in your heart and it just won't return void, as it says. And so those words that I read did not return void, and it got me interested. More and more. And so I would start reading the Bible and uh I went to a bookstore. Christian bookstore and I looked around.
I told Barb, I says, I wonder if they have such a thing as uh a a study bible. You know, I thought I had heard the word study right now. Right, right, yeah. It's a To a Christian bookstore, got a study Bible, and went in there. And I said, Do you have something called maybe like a, I don't know, a study Bible?
And she goes, Yeah, she. wave her hand down this whole row of study Bibles, you know. And so I picked one out that was a King James version. That's what the LDS uses, the standard King James version. And I read that thing until the cover fell off and the pages were coming out.
And it just opened the Bible to me so much that. I went, you know, I got another Bible and I started marking that up and another one, and it just was so interesting and fascinating. of what God is doing Mm-hmm. Among his people today. And the word of God is.
Fresh and it's new as if it were written today. Yeah, the well is always one more foot deep. It's always the well of God's word, with the richness of it, the sweetness of it, the meat of it. You know, it just never becomes just passe. It's like, oh, yeah, I figured that out.
I got that. I don't need to read that again. No, it's just got this, it's got this vibrant quality to it that's alive and it's just incredible, isn't it? It really is. I learned something new yesterday and We attended a church in Mesquite, Nevada, with some friends, and the pastor was up there talking about.
Jesus riding in on the colt, and as he rode down into Jerusalem, he said. It went down. Down, down, and from there it went from hail the king to two days later. nail the king.
So I, you know, I've never really thought of it that way, but that was another interesting little bit of knowledge that I got, understanding more. It's like an onion that you peel back one layer and there's another layer and there's another layer and it's awesome. It really is. Right, right, right.
Okay. And so when the gospel then was presented to you, you realized that you weren't. Heaven was not going to be your home. Was it like in in the privacy of your your room or out in the woods? Or wh when did you do some people can recall a certain day and time, or some people kinda like it just it's like a a period of time when it made sense to you and stuff, but would you want to just share like what happened when you became born again?
And then shortly thereafter, what kind of effect did that have on your other relationships around you, like family and friends and things like that? Sure, sure. We had some good friends. We were going to rent a house at one of our properties and we had somebody come over to the house. And they were skiers.
Um, they came out every year. Um, and they were Christian, we didn't know that, but they wanted to rent a house, and so, um. As they came in, they walked through the house and they looked and uh they saw up in Our office, we had a placard over a barb's desk that said, Christ is the center of our home. which I've always believed. He said that's interesting or Are you Christians?
And I says, No, we're LDS, but I'm searching. And right then, he was talking to us. I don't remember what he said. All I remember is that at the end Uh he said, Would you like Can we have a prayer? And I jumped out of my Office chair there, and I said, Absolutely.
And that was not like me. And I'm reading the Bible, and I loved it. And so I said, Sure. And so as we stood there holding hands, looking down at everybody's shoes um It was sort of like The clariton clear commercial on T V where they peel back that That view of that beautiful scene, and it becomes so much more clear. Wow, when he came in, that was exactly the way it was with me.
I was born again. I was sold. Right. Yeah, for those who are listening that might be Mormon, I mean, it's hard to sometimes. Describe what is actually actually happening here.
There's that work that God is doing in your heart, where we're dead in our sins, but yet He like we're at the bottom of the river and we're dead, you know? But then He comes down in the water and He and He and He we don't do anything really, but we just kind of We trust and we believe what he's doing in us, and it's kind of a miraculous mystery and everything. But yes, it just says we believe, we trust in this finished work that he did, being perfect and then taking our punishment for our sins. And then when that. Is real for us and him, that um acceptance of him, you know, similar to just a regular marriage, you know, when two people say, I do, I do.
It's like this thing where the man initiates it, then the woman says, Yes, I accept that, you know, yes, I will marry you. In a sense, it's it's kind of interesting to kind of think about it that way in some ways, but um you. You know? That's what happens to us when we get saved. It's amazing.
We were drowning, just like you said, we were drowning, we didn't know it. And I think the hand that comes down is Jesus as we look. To him through his word, and that's what I was doing. I was looking to him through his word, and he reached out and grabbed my hand. I didn't do anything.
I just was seeking. I wanted the truth. And he. Yeah, congrats to you, Zach. Yeah, yeah, you're going down for the count.
You and I, you and I being both saved out of Mormonism, we are going down for the count, kind of like in a boxing ring. You know, it's like you're knocked out onto the canvas, and it's a matter of time. Because if you stay in that state down there on the canvas, the referee counts one, two, three. Three, you know, or backwards or whatever, like that, you know, and it's like 10 seconds, and then you cross over into eternity. And Jesus said, unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.
And so that's a Very, very bad state to be in because we know that, you know. We can't we can't Expect to be in God's presence having that eternal nature in us, you know, and everything. And so that's just not going to work. But.
Okay, keep keep going.
So then at the point, Russ, and I was about at count. Nine. Right. Right. Yeah.
So, I'm grateful for what he's done in my life for sure. Yeah. And you know, the thing is, I've talked to so many. Um Former members of the church. I can't count on how many I've talked to.
And we all have different stories, don't we? Yeah. Bible. In Almost air free. Single case that I can remember.
One of the first things they said was, I started reading the Bible. Yeah, yeah. Almost in every Yeah. You know, our challenge, my challenge is to those who have not looked into God's Word. Um and have thought that it was not translated correctly.
If you look at it, scholars have gone back and you know, you look at the Qumran Caves where they pulled out the uh the the the altars. Yeah. And um Papyra and uh you know the Isaiah scroll When you compare it from a transmission of language from Hebrew to Greek, I mean Hebrew to English That Isaiah scroll. Right. It's ninety-six point whatever it is accurate, word for word.
And a lot of the the little you know, the point whatever it was that wasn't, uh was that a comma? Was that a period? Was that you know there are insignificant things that didn't that didn't affect meaning? Yeah, the the word, the transmission of God's word has as um, you know. Um into her time.
And he said, you know, the grass withers, the flower fades away, but my word withers.
Now for Fade away. Right. He he's promised us that. And if he's God, he can. And some people say, well, it's, you know, there's a lot of errors, there's a lot of mistakes, and this and that, this and that.
But.
the message that he wants us to have. in our lives is has been correctly. Uh and properly Research. Two loss. In his word.
So I'm grateful. And my challenge is to those people who have not yet done that. You know, you've got the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. Matthew, Mark, and Luke. They talk about Christ.
John is a little different. He Challenges us to think. about who Christ really is. And he challenges us to Make that. that decision.
Right. 1 John, we write these things that ye may know. That you have eternal life. It's not that you'll get a burning or anything like that in your bosom, but they wrote these things down so that we can have an assurity of eternal life. That's what the Bible says.
Right. Now, did you get much pushback from Mormon family or friends when you had this realization and this new life in Christ alone? Was it an easy transition? Or tell us a little bit about that, if you don't mind. Just maybe kind of like a.
Mom, dad, brothers, sisters, they're like, Rusty, what are you doing? You know, you're leaving the church. What's all that about? You know, what happened to you? Yep, that's what they said.
Yeah, you're a holy roller now. What's that? They said you're a holy roller now. What's up with that? Yeah, no, they you know, they couldn't understand it because, um, you know, what's wrong with uh going along with the church?
And you know, when I was growing up, yeah, I didn't really know the church was true. All I knew was that it was. Good. There was nothing in the church that said, you know, kill your parents or dig a hole for your enemies. Yeah.
It was all good. It was all good. And but there are so many questions about the history of the church.
So I got into that as well. But The family didn't take it well. Our kids, Barb calls it a divorce. Our kids sort of divorce this. Um But they're coming around and we praise God for that.
Um yeah. My my dad had just passed right before That happened. Um my mom Of course thought I was Completely lost and my sister and my two brothers and stuff. Right. And it was a hard time.
It really was, Russ. Yeah, for sure.
Well Well, you know, I want to have you on again and we can talk some more. About this. I think our listeners would really learn a lot just maybe on some tips on reaching Mormons. Maybe next time we do a recording, can we do another one, a follow-up, and maybe we could talk about your experiences living in Utah and then how to share the gospel in, we could call it Mormonese. How do you speak the language of a Mormon that would not compromise the truth, but speak in ways that might trigger certain thoughts and like, oh, you know, you mean this, not that?
You know, do you think that could be something we could do? That's a good point, Russ. I'd be happy to do that.
Okay. Thank you. That's a deal. Let's do that.
Well, thank you so much. And we'll be continuing our discussion with Rusty Dunbar next time here on Passion for Christ. Thanks for joining us. Before we sign off for today, please know that all of us here at Utah Partnerships for Christ appreciate your prayers and support. We are also available to do Zoom call workshops or personal coaching on reaching Mormons for Christ.
Contact us today at upfc.org. That's upfc.org. Thanks so much for joining us on another edition of Passion for Christ.
