Receiving People of Other Faiths

by Elizabeth Etta

I have always had people knock on my door wanting to share their faith and beliefs about Christ. These people are mainly the Latter Day Saints people aka Mormons as well as Jehovah Witnesses. I have made it clear to them that I believe in Jesus, however they use that as a good starting point to begin a faith discussion. So there I am welcoming them into my home as they share their belief systems, in the hope that they can try to convert me. I would admit though that most times, it helps me find answers to questions that I had never really pondered on. 

I am always a firm believer in not being ignorant but knowing the practices of your faith, so in a way, having someone come to talk to me about the Jesus Christ they believe in forces me to engage and study scriptures more to ensure that I am not being misled.

For the past year, I have not had any experiences with people knocking on my door, until recently two young men dressed in white shirt and black, knocked on my door saying they are from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and would like to share their faith about salvation, and about their book, which they called the book of Mormon another testament of Jesus Christ. We arranged for them to come over the following week to talk to us more. In the meantime, they said that God has a plan for our salvation, that they believe the book of Mormon is true, it complements the bible as they received a revelation from the holy spirit. They also said that if I pray and ask the holy spirit about the credibility of the book, and I truly want to know the truth then of course by all means I should pray about it.

Now, I didn't want to make judgements about a book I had not read and also if they clearly believed it to be true and saying it is another testament of Jesus Christ revealed by God and Jesus to a man named Joseph Smith. I couldn't doubt that knowing God reveals himself to whoever He chooses and gives His message to whomever. So I promised them, I was going to pray about it and read the book for myself. They seemed satisfied.

So that very evening, I decided to open the book and began to read. The spirit immediately prompted me to read Jeremiah 29.11 because they had talked about God's plan of salvation earlier in the day. Jeremiah 29.11 states, "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." 

While reading this verse, the spirit automatically took me to Jeremiah 29: 8-9 which says:

"For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream, for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, declares the Lord".

 

Immediately, I prayed about this, and kept asking God, can this be real? I wanted truth and this is where God was leading me? What could this possibly mean?

 

My spirit again spoke within me saying do some research and I started doing some investigations. It made me realize many Christians today are being misled because they do not find the truth for themselves in God's word. We sometimes allow ourselves to be spoon fed, or taking someone else's word for truth instead of God's and I felt God was speaking to my heart that the answers are in His word. So this are some of the talks that I had with the Mormons and my beliefs in regards to that based on what scripture has to say. I wanted to share this with you so that if you ever find yourself in a debate or even generally question what it is you believe about your faith, look up the scriptures to help you out.

1. The Mormons believe that just as they had prophets in the ancient times such as Moses, Abraham, Jonah etc, God has called prophets to lead the church in today's times, they have a current prophet today. They quoted Amos 3:7

 

My response, we don't need prophets today. Jesus Christ is our living prophet. He is alive today and forever. John 6:14, Acts 3:22-23 and Hebrews 1:1-2.

Also God is calling people not just prophets from the LDS church. He is calling people from all over the world to be preachers, teachers, healers, all according to His divine purpose.

 

They also say their prophet will never teach anything contrary to the will of God, yet further research led me to find some things about their past prophets and prophecies.

 

Joseph Smith prophesized that the New Jerusalem will be built in Missouri within his generation(didn't happen)

Brigham Young prophesied that the civil war would fail to end black slavery (he was wrong)

They are many other prophesies.

 

They believe God's plan of salvation is becoming an eternal family and returning to God's presence: In fact this is sort of their enticement to join their faith, if you talk to any Mormon.

 

However God's plan of salvation in the bible states in John 3:16 is to deliver us from sin and death: John3:3, Hebrews 2:10, 1Th3:9 acts 4:12

 

They also quoted James 1:5 which reads: "If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you." This was to persuade me to read the book of Mormon and ask God if it is true. Someone mentioned to me that wisdom, is the application of known facts while knowledge is the known facts. If we know that the book of Mormon contradicts the bible, we do not really need to pray about it's authenticity. The bible has never told us to pray about the truthfulness of  any book, so I even had to ask for forgiveness trying to pray to ask if the book of Mormon is true or not. Rather this is what the bible says about it. 1john 4:1 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. Jeremiah 17:9 also says

The heart is deceitful above all things
    and beyond cure.
    Who can understand it?

So if the heart wants to believe that a book is a true word of God like the book of mormon, it can believe it and claim that the spirit revealed it to be true

 

Another question, I put to them is that the bible testifies about Jesus Christ. Why do I need the book of Mormon?

 

Their answer, the book of Mormon gives the complete testimony of Jesus Christ. You understand the bible better when you read the book of Mormon, it is complementary. "No sir, sorry I'm not buying what your selling"

 

Latter day saints believe that their founder Joseph Smith was confused about different denominations, so he prayed and asked God which church to join. God told him none of the churches, as they were all wrong. God the father and Jesus appeared to him. They claimed that the original church of Christ established after Christ death, resurrection and ascension went into apostasy. Apostasy is when individuals or groups of people turn away from the principles of the gospel, they are in a state of apostasy. One example is the Great Apostasy, which occurred after the Christ established His Church. After the deaths of Christ and His Apostles, men corrupted the principles of the gospel and made unauthorized changes in Church organization and priesthood ordinances. Because of this widespread apostasy, the Lord withdrew the authority of the priesthood from the earth. This apostasy lasted until  the Father and His Beloved Son appeared to Joseph Smith in 1820 and initiated the restoration of the fullness of the gospel.

 

Mormonism clearly contradicts the bible. There has never been recorded any complete apostasy. (I'll call it the non-existent great apostasy). This is what the bible has to say about apostasy.

 

Concerning the apostasy this is what the mormons quoted to me Amos 8: 11-14:

However to counteract that this, I would say that bible verse was referring to ancient Israel and not after the death of the last apostle as they believe apostasy is. Also the bible has always talked about they always being a remnant Amos 9 : 8-10

 

To further counteract the apostasy theory there are 3 main arguments.

 

1. How can God have allowed for 1800 years after Jesus death and resurrection for people to be misguided and many people belonging to error-filled churches with no apostolic authority?

2. Ephesians 3:20-21Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,  to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. This means that the church is here to stay for all generations forever eliminating apostasy

3. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. mt. 16:18

 

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Mt 28:18-20.

 

To conclude, God promised to be with us till the end of the age and there will be no end to the kingdom of God here on earth.

 

In the end, I came to the conclusion that while there are differences within Christian denominations, the bible should be our main point of reference to be the guide for us here on earth. Our salvation is dependent on our acceptance of the Lord Jesus Christ as our lord saviour and understanding that we are saved by grace and not by our works, but still understanding that faith without works is pointless.