And so if you would flip over to First Corinthians
chapter number 15, I'll wrap up here.
But you know, I just want to point out to you
that the errors of Mormonism is a very strange religion,
a lot of false doctrine.
And you say, well, Pastor Anderson,
you know what, why do I need to hear this?
Because there's no way I would ever join the Mormon church.
I didn't even see those commercials.
And even if I had seen those commercials,
I would have reacted the way you did and rejected them.
The reason that I share these things with you
is because the way that the Mormons twist scriptures
are the way that other false teachers
are gonna twist scriptures to you.
And I'm showing you how not to interpret the Bible, right?
Because when we read the Bible,
we don't wanna use these kind of interpretation methods
where we're basically just making up things.
Well, maybe he went to India.
Maybe he got married.
Maybe, I mean, that's a stupid way to read the Bible.
What we need to do is read the text for what it says
and deal with the text.
Read the text and say, okay,
this is what it says about Jesus.
That's what we're gonna believe.
That's why I'm not interested in sitting around
and think about, I wonder what Jesus' early 20s were like.
You know, this is how you get into false doctrine.
His early 20s, I wonder what his teenage years were like.
Here's what I know about Jesus.
I know what he was like when he was a baby.
I know what Jesus was like when he was 12.
And I know what Jesus was like when he was 30.
You know, I can't say anything about Jesus' life
when he was 22 years old or 17 years old.
And I think that it's a wrong way to preach.
It's a wrong way to read the Bible to make things up
and think about these things and say,
"Well, if the Bible doesn't say no, then you know."
I mean, we need to go by what the Bible does say, okay?
And we need to compare scripture with scripture,
read the whole context, and take the Bible at face value.
If the Bible says there's a marriage at Cana,
Jesus is invited, his disciples are invited too,
don't walk away saying,
"I wonder if he was the one getting married."
That's the wrong way to read the Bible.
Just take the Bible at face value.
Some people, they try to read so much between the lines,
they actually don't read the lines.
They're so busy looking for the hidden meaning,
they don't see what's right in front of them.
We need to go always with the surface meaning first.
Face value, what does the Bible actually state
before you go off looking for all this
super ultra deep hidden meaning.
You know, 1 Corinthians chapter 15 is another chapter
that's very powerful on the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
but this is a chapter that the Mormons will really twist.
You know, they love to twist this
and make it say something that it doesn't.
And one of the verses that they like to bring up
is verse 29 of 1 Corinthians 15.
'Cause I'm showing you tonight
how to not interpret the Bible, okay?
In 1 Corinthians 15, 29 it says,
else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead?
If the dead rise not at all,
why are they then baptized for the dead?
Now let me ask you this.
You know, the Bible's got over 31,000 verses in it.
1,189 chapters.
Is there any place in the Bible
that tells us to get baptized for dead people?
Is there any command like that?
Is there any story where Peter shows up and says,
hey, let's get baptized for your dead relatives?
Cornelius, what about your relatives that already died?
Let's get baptized for them?
There's nothing like that in the Bible.
Yet the Mormons will say that they're,
'cause they get baptized for dead people.
They just, all day, every day,
they're just getting baptized.
They just have lists of names of genealogies,
and they're just baptizing for that person.
It'd be like, if I just brought Brother Sigoura
down here every day, five days a week,
Monday through Friday, and I just got a list
of all of Chris Sigoura's ancestors,
all my ancestors, all your ancestors,
and we're just like, and I'm just pretending
that he's my great-grandfather, Gustav.
And I'm just like, all right, Chris,
put on a baptism garment, and I'm just like,
all right, Gustav Anderson, I baptize you,
and I'm just like, all right, Adolf Anderson,
Anders Anderson, you know, and I'm just going through
all of these ancestors, dunking him.
That's what the Mormons are basically doing.
Okay.
And why?
Where are they getting this?
Well, I mean, they've got 1 Corinthians 15, 29.
Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead?
If the dead rise not at all,
why are they then baptized for the dead?
Well, there you go, folks.
Now here's what's wrong with this method
of interpreting the Bible.
Is this verse telling us that God's people do this?
Is this verse saying that the apostles do it?
That Christians do it?
Is he saying that we should do it?
Is he telling us to do it?
Is he saying that he does it?
No.
He's talking about, in this chapter,
our false teachers who are denying the resurrection.
And he's pointing out an inconsistency
in their own doctrine.
He's saying, if these people don't believe
in the resurrection, then why are they baptizing
for the dead if the dead rise not at all?
Then why are they baptized for the dead?
Do you see what I'm saying?
He's just pointing out that their own religion
contradicts itself.
It'd be like if I said, well, if the Mormons believe
that Jesus was married, why don't they preach it?
If that's what they believe,
then why don't they preach that?
Oh, well, Pastor Anderson thinks
that they should preach that.
I'm just pointing out the fact
that they're not even consistent with themselves.
So you never want to base a doctrine on a question.
Base a doctrine on a statement.
This is not even a statement, this is a question saying,
why do these people do this?
It doesn't even make sense what they're doing.
Oh, well, let's go do that.
You see how that's a wrong way of interpreting the Bible?
And you know, you wonder sometimes, you know,
there's all these denominations,
there's all these religions out there.
How do we know which one's right?
Everybody's got an interpretation.
But you know what, friend, that's not true, okay?
You've got people who interpret the Bible correctly,
rightly dividing the word of truth,
and you've got people that twist Scripture
to teach what they want it to teach.
The Mormon church is built on the lusts
of men like Joseph Smith and Brigham Young,
who wanted to just have a harem of underage girls,
and that's what they did.
They had a harem of underage girls,
and so they're gonna build a doctrine around that.
Oh, you know, you can't go to heaven
unless you get married, girls.
And you wanna go to the real, hey,
you wanna go all the way to celestial,
or you wanna go celestial?
Hey, stick with me, babe.
You're gonna be in the highest level of heaven,
the celestial.
Okay, that's where this doctrine comes from.
It's a bunch of dirty old men in Utah
bringing a bunch of underage girls into the harem
wanting to be married to 10 wives, 15 wives, 20 wives.
They're a bunch of perverts.
That's what's going on.
And so they're gonna build a doctrine around that.
And let me tell you something.
The Bible, because it has 31,000 verses,
you can pretty much get the Bible
to say whatever you want it to say
if you take verses out of context.
And if you just grab a line here and grab a line there
and just rip it out of its context, twist it,
especially when you go get some other version of the Bible,
you can get the Bible to pretty much say
whatever you want it to say if you wanna twist scripture,
because there's 31,000 verses.
There's so much material to work with.
Or with a good and an honest heart,
you could approach scripture and just take it
for what it says.
And just read what it says.
And not read into it things that aren't there.
You can just read it and read, okay, here's Jesus,
he's baptized, he's got 12 disciples,
he's going around doing good, he's doing miracles,
he's preaching, he dies on the cross,
he's worried about his mom, he takes care of mom,
you know, there's no mention of him being married
or having kids or anything like that.
But if you wanna read that into the text,
you're gonna go dig for some passage in Isaiah.
He shall see his seed.
And then you're like, where?
I'm trying to find Jesus getting married in the Bible.
Well, he attended a wedding.
Must have been his wedding.
If not, then tell me whose it was.
'Cause if you can't tell me who got married,
I'm gonna say it was Jesus.
Well, you know what?
I can tell you that it wasn't Jesus,
it wasn't Mary, and it wasn't any of Jesus' disciples.
'Cause they were all guests who were invited.
But you see how if you want to approach the Bible
with a weird doctrine, you can put it in there.
You can put whatever you want in the Bible.
And look, every weird Catholic doctrine,
they have a verse to back it up.
But it's out of context 100% of the time.
It doesn't actually say what they're saying it says
when you actually read it in context.
Every weird Mormon doctrine, they can point you to something.
I got a thing in the mail giving me
all the biblical justifications for worshiping Mary,
for the transubstantiation.
I mean, look, they have a verse for everything,
but it's out of context.
It's being read into the text
and not what the text actually says.
You know, you've got to read the Bible
and take it at face value.
And you know what?
I'm all for looking for deeper meanings
'cause the Bible's really deep, right?
I like all the symbolism and the allegory
and the deep meaning, but you know what?
Always make sure before you go deep
to get what's on the surface.
That should be the first thing.
The first stage of Bible preaching and teaching
should be just what does the text actually say?
You know, I mean, the first thing that I'm gonna do
when I'm reading the Bible, and I get to a story of,
you know, Hagar and Ishmael,
and Hagar and Ishmael get thrown out.
You know, I'm just gonna start out by just saying,
you know, Hagar and Ishmael got thrown out,
you know, and tell about that story.
Then we'll go into the spiritual implications of,
you know, Hagar represents the Old Covenant,
and Isaac represents Christians, and you know,
but that's secondary.
We always start with this, otherwise people would say
that the events in Genesis, you know,
they didn't even happen, 'cause it's all allegory.
There was no Abraham, there was no...
Let me tell you something, Abraham was a real person.
Ishmael was a real person.
Isaac was a real person.
Noah and the ark, that actually happened.
Those are real people.
Now, but we'll also say, okay,
the door on the ark represented Jesus, right?
The flood represents damnation.
Being on the ark represents salvation.
There's only one way, one door, Jesus.
But you know what?
Before I even begin to talk about that,
the first thing we're talking about is
God actually flooded the whole earth
and Noah built the ark and went on the ark with his family
and they were spared the physical destruction
of drowning in the flood.
You know, we don't wanna lose sight of the main story.
Yes, I love the symbolism.
Yes, let's tie it in with the gospel of Jesus Christ,
but let's not lose or negate what the Bible actually says.
Okay, we need to go with just the surface meaning first
and make sure we nail that down,
then let's go into the deeper meanings.
Instead of just always looking for something weird.
And that's why I started out the sermon
with be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines.
There are people out there,
they're just looking for something new, right?
They just, it's like their goal,
their search in the Bible to see if they can find something
nobody else found.
And the weirder it is, the cooler it is.
The more sci-fi, wild, exotic it is,
you know, so much the better.
Folks, that is the wrong way to read the Bible.
You know, we should be just looking for the normal stuff
and just reading the Bible.
And you know, let's find the deeper meanings,
but let's not just go into just crazy town
looking for the weirdest,
maybe it was Jesus who got married at that wedding, you know?
And you know, sometimes people,
and I'm not necessarily making fun of anybody
who brings some of these things up to me,
but sometimes people will come up to me
with kind of wild doctrines,
like, you know, maybe the lake of fire is the sun.
Maybe the sun's the lake of fire.
And I'm not making fun of you if you thought that,
but I'm just saying, like, where does the Bible say that?
Why would I believe that?
Why would I teach that?
Why would I believe that?
What scriptural basis is there for that?
That the sun is the lake of fire.
That just, it's just like, where's that coming from?
I mean, if that's how we're gonna read the Bible,
then we can just start making up all kinds of wild things.
Then pretty soon we're like Bill McGregor
saying that the New Jerusalem's on the planet Saturn.
(audience laughs)
I mean, Bill McGregor said that the New Jerusalem
is hidden in the planet Saturn.
Well, show me in the Bible where it's not.
You know what I mean?
He said the 144,000 are in a secret base in Antarctica.
And it's like, well, show me in the Bible where they're not.
He found some verse about people being cold or something,
you know, the frost or ice or something.
And it's just, he just ran with it.
Do not be carried about with divers and strange doctrines.
If somebody comes at me with a wild doctrine,
they better have some concrete evidence from them.
They better have some clear scripture from the word.
And sometimes there are people like,
you know, I can't, I've had people bring me a doctrine
and they're like, I can't explain it that well.
You gotta listen to the sermon.
Can't explain it.
Well, can you show me the Bible?
No, but you gotta hear the sermon.
Like the one time I heard this doctrine about how like,
when we are gone, when we're not here,
that somebody believed that like demons
come to the church building and mock us
and have a fake church service while we're gone.
And it's like, and it was just like, what?
But they're like, if you heard the sermon that I heard,
the pastor made a real good case for this.
And it's just like, I don't need to hear that sermon.
Like, I know that that's not in the Bible,
but if you heard the sermon though,
here's the thing, if I have to hear some special sermon
to believe something, it's probably not worth believing.
If somebody can't just open a Bible
and just show me a couple of verses,
hey, this is where this is coming from, you know,
but it's all this wild stuff.
But if you heard the sermon, you gotta watch this video,
you know, here's the thing, you know,
look, everything I believe, I can just open my Bible
and just show you some verses.
And if I can't show you a clear verse
about something I believe, you know what I'll say?
I'll say, hey, this is my opinion,
but I'm not really dogmatic about it
'cause I don't really have a clear verse.
Anything I'm gonna say, hey, I know I'm right about this,
it's 'cause I can point you to a clear verse
and it'll take me minutes to show you a couple clear verses.
That's the standard for doctrine.
And we need to make sure that all of our beliefs
are based on clear scriptural statements
so that we're not carried about with all this wild stuff.
And the Mormons are an extreme example,
but even within evangelical Christianity,
I mean, you know, people can get caught up
in these weird things.
I mean, look at that guy that they brought up
at that Presbyterian seminary or whatever.
You know, what's he teaching those students
that are coming to that school and learning from this guy?
That guy should be fired for teaching that, right?
Immediately.
I mean, if some professor in a Bible seminary
or Bible school is teaching that Jesus was married
and had children, he should be immediately fired
and they should be tarred and feathered.
Anyway, that's what they did to Joseph.
Did you know that Joseph Smith was literally
tarred and feathered?
Who knew that?
Joseph Smith was literally tarred and feathered.
In fact, they were this close to castrating him,
but he escaped being castrated.
In the early days of Mormonism, him and co-founder,
right-hand man, Sidney Rigdon, were both tarred and feathered
and almost neutered.
That's a true story.
I'll close on that.
Let's pray it's everywhere.
Father, we thank you so much, Lord,
for the resurrection of Jesus Christ
and it's good to be able to think about that today, Lord,
and to realize that Christ is risen
and that one day, because we know that Jesus is risen,
we know that we also will be resurrected
and we know that we have eternal life through Jesus
because he purchased eternal life on the cross
and we're his seed and we're what he traveled for.
And we thank you so much for the gospel and salvation
through Jesus Christ, and it's in His name we pray.