Micah Wilder Passport to Heaven Part 5

Viewpoint on Mormonism, the program that examines the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from a biblical perspective. Viewpoint on Mormonism is sponsored by Mormonism Research Ministry. Since 1979, Mormonism Research Ministry has been dedicated to equipping the body of Christ with answers regarding the Christian faith in a manner that expresses gentleness and respect. And now your host for today's Viewpoint on Mormonism. Hoping you're having a very pleasant Friday, welcome to this edition of Viewpoint on Mormonism. I'm your host Bill McKeever, founder and director of Mormonism Research Ministry, and with me today is Eric Johnson, my colleague at MRM, but this week we've also had with us a very good friend of ours, Micah Wilder. He's the head of Adams Road Ministry. He wrote a book called Passport to Heaven, the true story of a zealous Mormon missionary who discovers the Jesus he never knew.

Welcome back, Micah. You have an incredible ministry with music, and you do a lot of traveling with Adams Road and giving your testimony and so forth. Why don't you very briefly explain what you do, and you're going to be in the western United States this year, so you'll be in Utah and Idaho and such, and how can people find out exactly where you're going to be? Yeah, so because of COVID last year, we had to take a hiatus from touring, but this will actually be, I think, our 14th year of traveling all across North America. So we begin in June, and then we'll travel through October.

You can go to our website, adamsroadministry.com. We have our full tour schedule there. We'll be all over the United States and just encourage you to connect with us. We visit churches, and we share our testimonies, we share our stories, and then we equip and encourage the body of Christ to go out and fulfill the Great Commission. All of our events are free, all of our music's free. If you want to connect with us, just go to our website and see where we're going to be, and we hope to see many of you in person.

And again, that is adamsroadministry.com. In your book, we are now getting to the part of your story. You've already had an encounter with Pastor Benson, a Baptist pastor in Florida who's challenged you on what you believe, made some pretty serious accusations regarding the differences between what Mormons believe and what evangelicals believe. But you go through a huge transition.

You start reading your New Testament over and over again. Yeah, in fact, let me read, Bill, page 161, where he actually has a conversation with Joseph Warren, who is now your brother-in-law. It's a great story, Bill, because on the bottom of 160, Joseph sees a picture of Micah's sister. And he says this, dude, he said with ogling eyes, is that your sister? He picked up the picture and pointed at Katie. Yes, I responded knowing what was coming next. Can I write her?

He asked leafily. Bro, she's 15. Ugh, absolutely not. So there's humor in this book as well. But then you shared the gospel with him and now today he's a brother-in-the-Lord. Page 161, you write this.

This is what you said. Warren, it's hard to put this into words, but so much of my life is changing. I've been reading the New Testament every day and I don't know. I just feel different. Like there's so much more than I already know. God is showing me things and opening my eyes.

It's hard to explain. You should read the New Testament too. Read it like a child. Put away all your preconceived notions about what you think is truth. Humble yourself, approach God with an empty cup and let him fill it. Come to God as a child with their father and let him teach you.

That's what I'm trying to do and it's the most amazing thing. You sound like Pastor Benson here. Although my heart was not necessarily in the right place when I began the process of reading the Bible, the power of God's Word immediately began to wash me and to change me and to transform my heart. And it was such a gradual process, but I knew that something was changing in my life. I knew that God was opening my eyes to something that was so different than anything that I had ever known. It was something so much greater than anything I could ever fathom. And of course, that was the gospel.

It was the truth. It was the demonstration of God's love for me and that while I was still a sinner that Christ Jesus died for me. And of course, I thought that I believed that and understood that as a missionary, but it was a recognition of the sufficiency of that work, of the perfection of that work, of the completeness of what Jesus did for me on the cross and that he paid in full measure the penalty that I have got and that that alone was enough and that I couldn't add to that and I couldn't be worthy of eternal life, but yet God loved me enough to send Jesus to be the propitiation for my sins. And that ultimately led me to recognizing that Jesus alone was the only way to be saved and that all these ordinances and laws and tenets of Mormonism that I was trying to add to what Jesus did, that they would never be sufficient, that only trusting in Jesus alone would bring me into right standing with God.

Now you're representing a church that's called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And you would think that your emphasis on the completed work of Christ on the cross on behalf of Micah Wilder would be something that your mission president would embrace, but that is not at all what happened. And you tell the story of the conflict that this raised with your mission president, the president Sorenson, as he's mentioned in your book.

Let me just give part of the story. And this is a chapter called Nehor. This is what the mission president says. I don't know what has happened to you, Elder.

I started to see signs for the last six months or so. Every time you have been given your testimony, all you have mentioned is Christ. It worried me a great deal. That's how I knew that something was wrong, end quote. And then you write, I couldn't believe what I had just heard. He was worried because my testimony was only in Jesus Christ.

So what happens as a result of that? So after having become born again, I had to meet face to face with my mission president. And that section, that is word for word.

I went and wrote that down immediately after that meeting. And it was just a confirmation to me that this church that bore the name of Jesus Christ right in its title was not really built on Jesus Christ, and certainly was not built on the same Christ that was revealed in the Word of God. And it just reminded me that when I was a Mormon, Jesus was part of my testimony. He was part of my faith. As a Christian, Jesus is my testimony. He is complete and he is sufficient. And so my whole testimony now is built on the finished work of Christ, not on Jesus plus all of these other man-made elements.

And I can hold on to him alone. Now, Eric and I have both been called Korihor by Mormons who were not too happy with us in our message, but he called you Nihor. Why don't you explain what that meant to you when you were called that name?

Yes. So Nihor was this guy that was going about, essentially, he was like a false teacher and he was charging money and he was getting rich because of his evangelizing. And it eventually led to violence and he was a murderer. And I mean, you know, so essentially it was a pretty pointed accusation because this guy was a charlatan and he was actually a murderer and he was an antichrist. And then he's comparing me to this guy named Nihor in the book of mouth, in the book of Mormon. And so it was offensive to me, but at the same time I knew that I was following Jesus, so I didn't have anything to fear. Yeah. I wouldn't think being called a name like that would endear you to this church that you're struggling being a part of at this point in time.

I don't know if that was a good play on his part to make an accusation like that. We think every Christian ought to read it. We also think every Latter-day Saint who might want to understand a little more of who you are ought to read this book as well. I love what you wrote on page 309 toward the end of the book. And this is after all these events taking place. You're dealing with Alicia. She's actually having a conversion of experience on her own based on the things that you're telling her while she's in Utah and you're in Florida.

But this is what you write on page 309. Growing up, I was taught by the church that Christians believed in a cheap grace. I thought that these self-proclaimed born-againers would throw their hands in the air, declare, I'm saved, and then live for sin, indulging in every desire of the flesh without believing that works had any part in the Christian life. Now that myself had become born again and received the life-changing love of God, my perspective had changed radically.

I now realize how much love transmutes the heart. When I came to know and understand the immeasurable love that God had for me and finally fathom the grace, the unmerited favor He had shown to me, I didn't see that as a license for me to sin as I pleased. In fact, it had the opposite effect.

Can you tell us a little more how that had an opposite effect? We love God because He first loved us, and that love for God to want to be faithful to His Word is what drives us. And so my motivation, the impetus for doing good works was because God was now living and working in me, that I was created in His workmanship to do the good works that He had prepared beforehand that I should walk in them. These good works in this life of Christian fruit was not my justification. It wasn't something I was doing to earn salvation. It was actually a result of the salvation that had come to me freely by the grace of God. And Mormonism has the cart before the horse, and so they're trying to justify themselves before God and make themselves righteous by their own goodness.

And like Paul said to the Romans about the Jews, that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge, and that they were ignorant of the righteousness of God in Christ and they were seeking to establish their own. And so that was me. And as I went through that process of being born again and having a heart transplant and becoming a new creation in Christ, I recognized that God loved me in Christ, that Christ completed the work necessary for my right standing with God, and then because the Holy Spirit now indwells in me, that God was going to work through me to produce the fruit of true faith.

Now your parents, after your conversion to Christianity, eventually also left the LDS Church and have become Christians as well. That's an amazing story in itself. And your mother wrote a book, Unveiling Grace, where she tells that story.

There is a lot of hope. A lot of people don't think, well, gee, you know, I'm all by myself out here, but you never know what God can do. Eric had mentioned Alicia. This was your fiance when you were on your mission. And you mentioned in the book that her father was a little worried about Alicia, listening to some of the things that you were saying. I can kind of understand that as a father, you'd be a little protective. Now, Alicia is your wife. You've got three boys. And how's your relationship with your father-in-law?

Can I ask that on the air? Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, I will readily admit that there was some tension in those relationships. I mean, there was tension in the relationships with my own parents, you know, for several months.

And so I'm fine to admit that. But I do praise God that He has healed those relationships over time. My wife's family, they're all still very steeped in Mormonism, all of her siblings, her parents, her in-laws, I mean, everything. But God is working in their hearts and God is working in their lives.

He's opening doors. Even in the last year, we've seen instances where they are being open to discussing the gospel with my wife, asking questions, going to the Word of God. And so we continually pray for them.

And I love what you said, Bill, like we can't give up hope. I mean, God is working continually and God's Word does not return void. And sometimes it takes a long time of many, many seeds being watered over, a long time for people to finally come to saving faith in Jesus. But I have hope that God is working in their lives and that they too will come to know the grace of Christ. Yeah, sometimes we can get a little bit impatient with how God works, but it's kind of like the sign you see in a restaurant.

Good food takes time to prepare. You know, don't rush God. He's going to do it right. Don't worry about it.

He's been doing this for quite a long time and he knows much better than we do. Micah, it's been a pleasure talking to you about this book. And again, the book is Passport to Heaven, the true story of a zealous Mormon missionary who discovers the Jesus he never knew. It's published by Harvest House Publishers. And again, if people want to find out more about Adams Road Ministry, it's adamsroadministry.com. I say buy the book.

It's a no-doubter. Thanks for being with us, Micah. Appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Thank you for listening. If you would like more information regarding Mormonism Research Ministry, we encourage you to visit our website at www.mrm.org where you can request our free newsletter, Mormonism Researched. We hope you will join us again as we look at another viewpoint on Mormonism.