Genesis chapter 3, the part of the chapter that I'd like to focus on, is at the beginning there where the Bible reads in verse number 1
Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field as the Lord God had made.
And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden.
And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden,
but if the fruit of the tree was in the midst of the garden, God would say, Ye shall not eat of it,
neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die under the certain scent of the woman.
Ye shall not surely die, for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof,
then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
Now this story here, very early on in the Bible, is of course the fall of mankind,
when the first man, Adam, sinned. The Bible says it worked for us by one man.
Sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for it all of sin.
Satan started out by tempting Adam's wife, getting Adam's wife to commit sin,
and then she convinced her husband to sin, and thereby doomed and damned the human race,
but thank God for the Lord Jesus Christ coming and paying for our sins and providing a way for us to be saved.
But the part that I want to focus on here is, first of all, what he says in verse number 5.
He says, In the day that ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened,
and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
So the first thing that the devil uses to try to tempt man into sin
is to try to appeal to this thing of you can be like God, or you can become gods.
God is trying to hold something back from you, and also he appealed to the curiosity
by saying you'll know good and evil, you'll know something that you don't know right now.
Look at verse number 6, it says, And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food,
and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise,
she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat.
You don't have to turn there, but in Romans 16, 19, the Bible reads,
For your obedience is come abroad unto all men.
I am glad, therefore, on your behalf.
But yet I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil.
He said, look, I'm glad to hear of your obedience to God's word.
He said, I'm glad that you're obeying Christ and living for the Lord,
but he said, I want you to be wise unto that which is good,
but I want you to be simple concerning evil.
He said, it's good if you live a good life, and you're not exposed to all the evil.
And we shouldn't want to know everything that's evil in this world.
And a lot of times curiosity can lead people into sin.
Young people will watch movies, or look at pornography,
or get on the internet and surf certain sites,
just out of curiosity, just to see what it's about.
Maybe mom and dad have forbidden something, and said,
son, daughter, don't go there, don't do this.
And they just have to know what it is, and they want to know all about it.
Another thing is that many people will seek to try to study false religions
in order to somehow defeat those religions.
My cousin was in Bible college,
and he said that he had to read the entire Quran, cover to cover the Quran,
which is about, I believe, two-thirds the length of the New Testament,
so it's not near as long as the Bible, but it's a pretty substantial book.
And he had to read the entire Quran, and the sad thing is,
there are probably many of the students in that same San Diego Christian college
that haven't even read the Bible cover to cover one time.
I'm not saying he's one of them.
I'm saying there are students there, I guarantee you, who haven't read the Bible.
See, we don't need to know everything that's evil in this world.
We don't need to study everything that's wrong.
If you're going to spot counterfeit money,
you basically just need to study the real thing.
And if you can identify the real thing, you'll know when something's off.
You'll know when something's false.
And so we don't need to read the Quran.
We don't need to read and study the Book of Mormon.
We don't need to dig into all these things,
because God said, learn not the way of the heathen.
And he also said to the children of Israel when they came to the Promised Land,
he said, inquire not how these people worship their gods.
He said, it doesn't matter.
He said, destroy their altars, break down their images,
and he said, you don't need to inquire and know everything about what they teach.
Now, you say, Pastor Anderson, you seem to know a lot about false religions.
You know how I know about them just through soul-witting.
I mean, when you're out knocking doors on soul-witting,
and you preach the Gospel to the Muslims,
and you preach the Gospel to the Mormons,
you preach the Gospel to the Catholic,
you get a true story of what they believe.
Because in the process of preaching the Gospel to them,
you're going to hear what they say,
and you can get a feel and understand everything about these churches
without having to bring the Satanic book itself into your home
and read over it page by page.
Just from talking to the thousands of Mormons and thousands of Muslims
and thousands of Catholics I've talked to,
I already know what their religion is about
because they'll all tell you the same thing, that salvation is by works.
You know, that it's repent of your sins to be saved.
That it's turn over a new leaf.
That it's, you know, you can lose your salvation.
They'll all tell you the same thing.
So I don't need to learn about what's evil,
and God here is showing us how the devil used that
to tempt Eve, her curiosity, to know evil,
to understand the things that are wrong.
And he said, you'll be as gods.
Now, turn to Isaiah 14,
because this is a common theme with Satan throughout the Bible.
All through the Bible, starting with Genesis 3,
we see Satan offering man the ability to be God,
saying, if you eat of this fruit, you will be as gods.
You will know good and evil.
But in Isaiah 14, we see actually where Satan's downfall was,
and it was in the exact same thing.
Look at Isaiah 14, 12.
How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer?
Now, who's Lucifer? He's talking about Satan.
How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning?
How art thou cut down to the ground which didst weaken the nations?
For thou hast said in thine heart,
I will ascend into heaven,
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God,
I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north,
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds,
I will be like the most high,
yet thou shalt be brought down to hell to the sides of the pit.
Hear me now. He did not say that he wanted to replace God.
That's what you'll commonly hear preached.
He wanted to replace God. Is that what it says in the passage?
No. He said, I will also sit in the sides of the north.
Do you see how many times also is used?
He said in verse 13, I will exalt my throne above the sides of the north,
I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north.
He said, I will ascend above the heights of the...
I will be like the most high.
He didn't say I'm going to replace the most high.
But he said, I'll be a God too.
I'll be like him.
I will also be in the position that he is now in.
But what's the result? Verse 15.
God is telling Lucifer,
yet thou shalt be brought down to hell to the sides of the pit.
Go to Ezekiel 28.
Ezekiel chapter 28.
So we saw in Genesis 3 that Satan is trying to tell man that he can be as God.
And then in Isaiah 14, he's being cast out of heaven
for saying in his heart that he would be as God,
that he would be like God, that he would be in addition to God,
that he would also be there with God.
Not that he would replace God, but he would be like God.
Like the most high.
Look at Ezekiel 28 verse 1.
It says, the word of the Lord came again unto me saying,
Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus...
This is a man, it's a human being they speak of.
Thus saith the Lord God, because thy heart is lifted up,
and thou hast said, I am a God.
I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas,
yet thou art a man, and not God,
though thou seth thine heart as the heart of God.
Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel.
There is no secret that they can hide from thee.
With thy wisdom and with thy understanding thou hast gotten thee riches,
and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures.
By thy great wisdom and by thy traffic
hast thou increased thy riches,
and thy heart is lifted up because of thy riches.
Therefore, thus saith the Lord God,
because thou hast set thy heart as the heart of God.
Behold, therefore, I will bring strangers upon thee,
the terrible of the nations,
and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom,
and they shall defile thy brightness.
They shall bring thee down... where?
To the pit. What's that referring to?
Hell.
And thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas.
Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee,
I am God?
But thou shalt be a man, and no God,
in the hand of him that slayeth thee.
Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hands of strangers,
for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God.
Now here's what's interesting. He continues talking.
He starts out, he's talking to the prince of Tyre.
The word prince in the Bible is often used to refer to a great leader,
great ruler, great king.
Prince comes from the Latin word, you know.
Well, you know Spanish. A lot of people here know Spanish.
Principio. What does it mean?
An open incipio, creole, you know.
It basically is the beginning, you know.
We have the principal at the school, basically because he's the head guy.
That's why he's called the principal. He's the number one guy.
And so the word prince is basically referring to somebody who's at the top,
you know, somebody who's a ruler, somebody who's a leader.
The reason that we think of a prince as being the firstborn son of a king
is because of the fact that he's the firstborn son,
and prince comes from the word meaning first.
That's where that English word comes from.
But in verse 12 he says,
Son of a man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus.
Now I thought that that's what we were already talking about,
but see, you see, what he does here is he starts talking about Satan
and referring to him as the king of Tyrus.
So he changes gears.
From the first part of the passage we saw a man on the throne,
a human being, who basically thought that he was God, didn't he?
He was lifted up and he said, I'm a God. I'm like God.
And he's being preached against here by Ezekiel, speaking God's word to him.
But then he starts to talk about Satan,
because that's really where that mentality comes from,
of wanting to be in the place of God or like him to God or in addition to God.
Look what it says in verse 12.
And you say, well, how do you know he's talking about Satan?
Well, you'll see in a minute.
Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus and say unto him,
Thus saith the Lord God.
Thou sealest up the sown, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
Thou hast been in Eden, the guardian of God.
Now you see that?
The literal prince of Tyrus at that time was not in the garden of God in Eden,
but he had something in common.
He wanted to be a god, is what he said in his heart.
It says in verse 13,
Thou hast been in Eden, the guardian of God.
Every precious stone was thy covering.
The sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the barrel, the onyx, and the jasper,
the sapphire, the emelon, the carbuncle, and gold,
the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee
in the day that thou wast created.
Thou art the anointed cherub.
So are we talking about a human being here?
No, we're talking about a cherub.
A cherub is one of these heavenly creatures, these angelic beings like Satan,
who is an angel, a cherub.
Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth, and I have set thee so.
Thou wast upon the holy mountain of God.
Thou wast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.
Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created
till iniquity was found in thee.
So he started out as a good creature, Lucifer,
until iniquity was found in him,
until he basically set out to deceive man,
to be man's god in opposition with the true God.
He said in verse number 16,
By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence,
and thou hast sinned.
Therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God,
and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.
Thy heart was lifted up because of thy beauty.
Thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness.
I will cast thee to the ground.
I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.
Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thy iniquities,
by the iniquity of thy traffic.
Therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee.
It shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth,
and the sight of all them that behold thee.
And they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee.
Thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.
Now there's so much in this passage.
There's so many things about Satan.
We notice that he's a musical creature.
He talks about his pipes and his tablets being created in him.
We know that he's a very beautiful creature.
The Bible says he's the most beautiful, the perfection of beauty.
That's why he was lifted up in his heart and said,
I will be like God. I'll be like the Most High.
Why was the king of Tyre, the prince of Tyre, why was he lifted up?
Because of his great riches and because of the merchandise
that he had made because of his great wisdom.
So the prince of Tyre was a man of wisdom and a man of riches.
Therefore he was puffed up and said, I am a God.
Satan was puffed up because of his great beauty,
because of his musical ability.
Notice it talks about his sanctuaries.
You know, Satan has his sanctuaries, doesn't he?
Satan has his music, doesn't he?
These are some of the tools that he uses, sanctuary means holy place,
these are some of the tools that he uses today to deceive man.
But that's not what I'm preaching about tonight.
Turn to Acts chapter 12.
We're going to read one more place and then I'll get into the purpose of the sermon.
And I'm not going to preach long tonight because my throat is in pain.
I don't know what's wrong.
I got Chris Segura disease.
He lost it.
How long did you lose your voice, Carl?
It's still gone.
Last time.
So I'm joining this Segura Club.
We're taking a vow of silence here, starting tomorrow, until our throats heal.
But in Acts chapter 12, verse 20, now you remember who was that king in Exodus 28?
Or I'm sorry, is he the 28th?
He was the king of what?
Tires.
This is interesting.
In Acts 12-20 it says,
And Herod was highly displeased with them of Ty.
Okay, so it's the same city, the same area.
This is a Gentile city that's basically just north of Israel on the sea coast.
But they came with one accord to him.
He's coming to Tyre on Tyre.
They came with one accord to him, King Herod.
And having made blast as the king's chamberlain,
their friend desired peace because their country was nourished by the king's country.
And upon a set day Herod, a raided royal apparel,
sat upon his throne and made narration unto them,
and the people gave a shout saying,
It is the voice of a god and not of a man.
And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him
because he gave not God the glory,
and he was eaten of worms and gave up the ghost.
But the word of God grew and multiplied
and Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem
when they fulfilled their ministry
and took with them John, whose surname was Mark.
So we see here that King Herod gives a great speech.
He's all, you know, set up in his royal apparel
and he makes this rousing political speech
and the people of Tyre look at him and say,
It is the voice of a god and not of a man.
Now what should he have said at that point?
He should have said, No, I'm not a god.
I am a man.
There's only one god.
And he should have given God the glory.
He shouldn't have said, Well, I'm a god too.
I mean, he didn't really deny God here.
He's just, basically, he's being told by these people,
You're a god also.
He didn't say, You're god.
They said, It's the voice of what?
A god.
He didn't give God the praise.
He didn't give God the glory.
He took that adulation.
He accepted it upon himself.
And therefore, the angel of the Lord smote him.
I don't know if he died right then and there,
but at that moment, he was smitten with worms
and those worms ate up his flesh.
Did it happen right there on the platform?
Probably. I don't know.
Maybe it happened later that day,
but the worms began to eat him up from the inside at that moment.
Go to Galatians 1.
The title of my sermon tonight is this.
Latter Day Satan.
That's the title of my sermon tonight.
Latter Day Satan.
Because today we have a religion that calls itself
the Latter Day Saints,
but in reality, it's not Latter Day Saints.
Because according to the Bible,
a saint is somebody who believes on the Lord Jesus Christ
as their savior.
The Bible says that by the which will,
we are sanctified through the offering
of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
The saints are those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
The saints are those who have no confidence in the flesh,
as Paul said,
but have their faith in Jesus Christ
as their righteousness, as their salvation.
Not by works of righteousness, which we have done,
but according to his mercy he saved us
by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost.
We are saints, but the Latter Day Saints, my friend,
are not saints.
They do not believe that.
And really, all they are is just a Latter Day Satan
manifesting himself.
Because just as Satan said,
I will be like the Most High,
just as he said in the Garden of Eden,
you will be as gods,
just as he said,
I will, in addition to God, be like God.
That is what the Latter Day Saints teach.
That is the truth of their doctrine.
That's what they will not tell you on the commercials
that show them promoting family values.
That is what they will not tell you at the door, my friend,
but that is the truth of what they believe.
They believe that they will be gods.
That's what they believe.
I've heard other false teachers of our day
preach this same doctrine,
besides just the Latter Day Saints.
The Mormons, for those of you who don't live in Arizona,
you know, or you haven't been here long enough
to figure out what a Latter Day Saint is,
because let me tell you something,
we are right in one of their major hubs right here.
Mesa, Arizona is a major, major hub of the Mormon religion.
I went soul winning in the midwest.
When I was in Chicago, I went soul winning for years.
I never even ran into a Mormon one time.
Never once.
And I knocked thousands and thousands and thousands of doors.
Never ran into one.
You're nodding your head.
What's that?
They were kicked out.
Yeah, they were thrown out of Illinois.
That's why they went to Missouri and later Salt Lake City and so forth.
You guys knew how to handle them, man.
But anyway, the bottom line is,
here we are, right next to a major hub of this false religion.
But even besides the Latter Day Saints, the Mormons.
You know, there are other false teachers.
I've heard a lot of charismatic leaders that have said,
I've heard Kenneth Copeland say that we are gods.
Joyce Meyer said we're gods.
I heard that the video clips of them saying that.
We're gods.
No, we're not.
We're not gods.
We are men.
We are human beings and we will never be gods.
Amen.
There's a place in Psalms where he said,
I've saved your gods.
And people will try to quote that.
They say, see, you're a god.
But look, compare that with Ezekiel 28.
He said, in the day that I slay you, Prince of Tyrus,
and cast you down into hell,
are you going to tell me then that you're a god
in the day that you die like a man?
And that's what he said in Psalms.
Finish the rest of the quote.
He said, I have said you're gods,
but you shall die like men.
It's not talking to believers.
It's talking to unbelievers who think that they're gods
because they know good and evil,
that somehow that makes them a god.
There is only one god.
Who's got one of those great invitations?
I'm going to use that as part of my sermon outline.
Thank you.
I mean, you know, Faithful Word Baptist Church
is really the greenest church in America.
Half the people in our church don't drive cars.
Number two, instead of reprinting part of my sermon,
I'm just taking it right out of here
without chopping down another tree to use this paper.
The other reason why we're so green
is because we're out soul winning so much.
We're walking.
Oh, wait a minute.
No, we're breathing out all that CO2.
I don't know.
We're pretty green, though.
Yeah, green.
We hand out green.
The song books are green.
We hand out green invitations.
Go green.
Go FWBC.
Listen to this.
This is what the former LDS, Latter-day Satan prophet
Brigham Young taught.
This is what he said.
How many gods are there?
I do not know.
But there never was a time
when there were not gods and worlds
and when men were not passing through
the same ordeals that we are passing through.
So he said there are other gods and other worlds.
The famous quote from the Mormon scriptures
that says,
As God was, so is man,
and as God is, so man shall be.
That is a lie.
God was never like we are.
God is not a created being.
He had no beginning.
He said, I am the beginning.
Amen.
That is what Jesus Christ said.
I am the beginning and the ending,
the first and the last, the Alpha and Omega.
He did not have a beginning.
Amen.
He is from everlasting.
Michael 5 2.
Listen to this scripture.
Isaiah 43.
We will turn there.
And while you are turning there,
I will read you 1 Timothy 2 5
where it says,
For there is one God
and one mediator between God and man,
the man, Christ Jesus.
There is one God.
Could it be any clearer?
I like what it says in Mark 12.
This is when Jesus is preaching.
He quotes the famous passage
from Deuteronomy chapter 6.
He said,
Here, O Israel,
the Lord our God is one Lord.
And when he quoted that,
here is what the scribe answered him.
He said,
Well, master,
thou hast said the truth,
for there is one God,
and there is none other but he.
Mark 12 32.
And Jesus answered him and said,
he saw that he answered him discreetly.
He said,
Thou art not far from the kingdom of God.
You are in Isaiah 43.
Look at verse 10.
Ye are my witnesses,
saith the Lord,
and my servant whom I have chosen,
that ye may no one believe me
and understand that I am he.
Before me there was no God formed.
Brigham Young.
Neither shall there be after me.
I even I am the Lord,
and beside me there is no Savior.
We could go on and on,
but all throughout Isaiah,
if you want to do more reading on this,
just read chapter 43, 44, and 45.
And he says,
Again and again,
there is only one God.
Beside me there is no God.
There is no one else.
There is no,
I may,
but no matter how many times he said it,
again and again and again and again,
they will still teach,
Oh, there are all these other gods.
I knocked on the door of a Mormon.
I was told a couple of weeks ago.
And I was,
and I was giving him the gospel,
and he basically was choking on the fact
that it was believe only.
You know, he's trying to say it works.
You got to repent of your sins.
You got to,
you got to follow the commandments.
You got to get baptized.
You got to go to church.
He's saying all the work.
And basically,
we get down to the end,
and I, you know,
and I basically said,
I said, you know,
I said, you're not saved.
You know,
and plus you believe in multiple gods.
You don't,
you don't believe there's one God.
The Bible says,
He said,
Who told you that
we only believe there's one God?
And I've had this conversation how many times?
I said, no.
I said,
I know that you guys believe
that there's more than one God.
And I said,
I've talked to Mormon missionaries.
I've talked to,
I said,
I've been doing this for 12 years
door to door every week.
I talked to thousands of Mormons.
I said,
I got people in my extended family
that are Mormons.
I said,
you guys believe that there's more than one God.
I don't know who you've been talking to,
but we only believe that there's one.
You got your information all messed up.
You know,
you were,
you were in my part.
And,
and then I,
I basically pulled out.
I said,
Okay,
well did Brigham Young say this?
And I show him this quote
from Brigham Young.
And here's what he said.
Well,
what do you do with all the verses
in the Bible that say that God
said there's more than one God?
And I said,
Wait a minute.
Just a minute ago,
you said that there wasn't more than one God.
But see,
they try to hide that.
They don't want to get the reputation
for being the pagans that they are.
They believe in multiple gods,
and they are pagans,
my friend.
They believe that there are always different gods.
And they don't want that reputation,
because they,
every Mormon you talk to,
the first thing they'll try to say,
Oh yeah,
you know,
we're like you.
That's what they try to,
it's like,
Oh yeah,
we're like you.
You know,
people try to say,
we're different,
or we're not Christian.
No,
we're like you.
And they'll try to make it seem like
they're just another
denomination of Christianity.
But my friend,
there's a key tenet to Christianity
that they're missing.
That there is one God.
And they will try to hide that,
but if you pin them down
every single time,
when you pin them down,
they will say that there are other gods.
Another time,
going back about two months,
same thing,
I knock on a Mormon's door.
He says,
No,
you're all messed up,
I don't know where you're getting
this information,
we only believe there's one God.
And this is how they just
say,
Oh,
we're different,
we're different.
And this is how they justify it.
They say,
because usually you ask them,
I always just ask them,
How many gods are there?
And they'll say,
Well,
we only worship one.
But see,
that's how they're tricky about it.
Well,
we don't know,
we only believe in one God.
We only worship one God.
And I always say,
Well,
that's not what I asked you.
I said,
How many gods are there?
And then sometimes they'll say
something like,
I know where missionaries say,
You mean in all the universes?
And I'm like,
I always thought that the universe
started with uni because there's
only one God.
So they say,
Oh,
you mean all the galaxies
are solar systems?
And there's star systems?
And I'm like,
Yeah.
And they say,
Well,
we don't know.
It could be any number of gods.
But this guy a couple months ago,
you know,
same thing,
I'm wrong,
I don't know what I'm talking about,
they only believe in one God,
blah, blah, blah.
So then I say to him,
I say,
Well,
let me ask you this.
Has God always existed?
Like our God?
Has he always been around?
Or was he created?
Did he used to be a man
like that?
Or was he created?
Did he used to be a man
like us?
And he admitted that he used
to be a man like us.
And I said,
Okay,
well,
then when he was a man
like us,
didn't he have a God over him?
And he said,
Yes.
So first he tells me there's
only one God.
But then a minute later,
he's telling me that our current
God,
you know,
used to be a man on some other
planet with some other God over
him.
And you're going to tell me
that's Bible Christianity,
that there are other planets
with other gods,
and that one day you will be
like God.
One day you can be as God
and be a God of your own planet.
That,
my friend,
is Satan.
And,
you know,
let's give a name to Satanism,
Mormonism.
Because,
you know,
it's not a bunch of people
in dark hoods chanting.
The Satan of the Bible is
transformed into an angel of
light,
the Bible says.
It says,
No wonder.
Satan himself is transformed
into an angel of light with his
sanctuaries and his music and
his tabernacle choir.
And I'm not saying they're the
only ones who are following Satan.
We'll get to that later on.
But let me tell you something.
Satan in the Bible was the one
who said,
I want to be like God.
And he tried to get human beings
to do that same thing.
Oh,
you can be as God.
And let me tell you,
you're eating of the forbidden
fruit, my friend.
When you walk into that Mormon
temple,
you're basically trying to
achieve God's status when you
get baptized into the Mormon
religion.
And when you take their
sacraments,
you're basically on the path to
Godhood,
according to them.
But you're on the path to hell,
if that's where you're at.
You need to be saved.
You see,
Mormonism is not Christianity.
It's not Latter-day Saints.
It's Latter-day Satan.
Look at Galatians 1.
Let's look at the origin of
Mormonism.
You say,
Are you an expert on Mormonism?
I don't want to be an expert on
Mormonism.
They believe in multiple gods.
Done.
I remember my grandpa,
he was a great soul winner.
And my grandpa passed away when
I was 11 years old,
unfortunately.
He's a great soul winner,
a great man.
My grandpa's family was all
Mormons.
He was raised a Mormon.
He was raised like a Jack Mormon.
He wasn't really that into it,
and his family wasn't really that
into it.
So he was raised as a Jack Mormon
up in Idaho Falls,
which is a really big Mormon
area,
just north of Salt Lake City,
Utah.
And he was raised there in a
family, and he had 11 or 12
brothers and sisters,
and he was raised up there.
And when he turned 16,
they told him,
Too many mouths to feed.
Go out and do something with
your life.
So he hopped on a freight train,
came down to California,
and basically just made his own
way in life.
Well, he got saved.
He ended up meeting my grandma.
They ended up getting married.
He wasn't saved when they got
married.
He was not.
He was saved because he came
down the aisle in a church
service and was basically given
a false gospel by the pastor who
just basically told him that he
came to church and listened to
the preaching.
He was automatically saved and
never baptized him or anything,
and he didn't understand the
gospel.
And he said this.
This is what he said.
He said,
I thought I was going to heaven
because I looked at my wife's
whole family,
who were all Baptists,
and I said,
Well, I'm every bit as good as
they are.
So if they're going to heaven,
I'm going to heaven.
So he thought it was worse.
He didn't understand that it was
just by believing I'm correct.
Later on,
a five-year-old boy on a street
witnessed to him and quoted a
bunch of scripture to him.
Did you hear me?
A five-year-old boy witnessed to
my grandpa,
and he was so impressed by that,
he ended up visiting the church
that the five-year-old boy went
to that he heard the gospel from,
and then the pastor of that
church came and won him to Christ
a few days after they visited in
the home and also won my dad to
Christ.
My dad was just a ten-year-old
boy.
So here's my grandpa.
He got saved.
His wife had already been saved.
But the kids got saved.
They started going to an
independent fundamental Baptist
church.
Well,
his desire was to win his
relatives to Christ that were all
Jack Mormons up in Idaho.
And he would get together with
them and try to give them the
gospel,
and they were just so hardened to
it.
Eventually,
he got,
or I believe he got his mother
saved,
eventually.
But he tried to give them the
gospel,
tried to give them the gospel,
and finally he said,
you know what I'll do?
I'm going to get a Book of Mormon.
He said,
I'm going to read this thing,
because I want to be able to
intelligently talk to them,
you know,
and be able to like read it,
to disprove it,
like to use it again,
you know,
to show them that it's wrong.
So he went out and he bought a
Book of Mormon.
He gets the Book of Mormon,
gets to page two or something.
He starts reading in it,
like one or two pages,
and just started yelling,
this piece of junk!
He just threw it at the wall,
and it broke,
and he threw it at the trash,
and said,
I'm not reading that garbage!
You know.
So he had kind of a bad
temper,
but anyway.
And then like a year went by,
and then he decided he was
going to do it again.
I'm going to read it,
you know that same thing.
Read a few pages,
yelled at it,
screamed,
just cursed it,
and threw it in the trash.
You know,
I just skipped a step.
I just didn't even start reading
it,
you know what I mean?
He said,
well you didn't read it,
you know,
I don't want to fill my mind
with something that I know
is false.
You say,
well how do you know it's false
if you don't read it?
Because anything that contradicts
this book is false.
And you know what?
Otherwise,
this book is false.
You know what I mean?
And I know this book teaches
that there's only one God.
And I know that this book teaches
that salvation is through
nothing else but believing
on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Jesus paid it all,
it's by faith alone.
But where is Mormonism based?
Are you in Galatians 1?
It's based upon a rebel,
and I'm just simplifying
for the sake of time,
I don't care to go into
all the details of it.
I'd rather preach the word of God.
But it's based upon basically
an angel came and spoke unto,
you know,
Joseph Smith.
You know,
this guy Joseph Smith,
an angel came and spoke unto him.
Well look what the Bible says
in Galatians 1.6 about that.
It says,
I marvel that you are so soon
removed from him that called you.
Man, my voice is coming back,
this is great.
I'm still going to preach to Lord.
I marvel that you're so soon
removed from him that called you
into the grace of Christ
unto another gospel.
So he's saying,
look,
are we preaching some other gospel
to you and you're falling for it?
And he said,
which is not another.
What he's saying is
it's not a completely different gospel.
He's saying,
but there be some that trouble you
and would pervert the gospel of Christ.
So he's saying
it's not a completely new gospel,
it's just a perversion
of the existing gospel.
It's like they took the gospel
and twisted it.
That's what perversion means.
He said,
but though we or an angel
from heaven preach any other gospel
unto you than that which we have
preached unto you,
let him be a curse.
He said,
look,
if you hear something different
from some prophet
or some dreamer of dreams,
he said back in Deuteronomy,
or some angel,
even if it's an angel from heaven,
Paul even said,
though we,
even if I come preach you
some other gospel,
even if you know it's me,
even if you know
it's an angel from heaven,
he said if they're preaching
a different gospel,
let him be a curse.
Because you know this is true.
So anything that violates this,
you know it's not true.
It doesn't matter who it's coming from.
It doesn't matter if somebody
does a miracle before you
and the devil does lying signs and wonders.
The Bible's clear on that fact.
He said,
let him be a curse.
As we said before,
so say I now again.
I love the consistency.
I was saying it then
and I'm saying it now.
If any man
preached any other gospel unto you,
then that you have received.
Let him be a curse.
And that's exactly what Mormonism is.
Another testament of Jesus Christ.
Another gospel,
and you know what it is?
It's a perversion of the gospel.
It changes the gospel of Christ.
And I'll say to you right now
that Mormonism is a cult.
You say,
why is Mormonism a cult?
Because Mormonism is following a man
and not God,
and not the Word of God.
And by the way,
the Word of God is God.
Read John 1-1.
You see,
they're following man.
It started out by following Joseph Smith.
And then they followed Brigham Young.
And then they followed the next guy,
who's less famous
and therefore I don't know his name.
And then I followed,
and then they,
I didn't follow him.
And then they followed the next guy.
And today,
they are still following a man.
And that man,
listen to me now.
That man,
when he speaks,
they will put more stock in what he says
than in what the book says.
And you say,
why, no,
that's not true.
It is true,
because they don't believe
that the Bible is the Word of God.
And I'll prove that to you.
Here's what I,
you said you saw this etched in stone,
didn't you,
Brother Garrett?
They had this etched in stone
outside the Mormon Church
up in,
what's the name of the town?
In Clameth Falls, Oregon.
He saw it etched in stone
at the Mormon Church there.
And I've heard them say this verbally
a million times just in my soul.
This is number 8 of their 13 beliefs
or whatever that they promote.
He said,
we believe
the Bible to be the Word of God
as far as it is translated correctly.
We also believe the Book of Mormon
to be the Word of God.
Now,
hear me on this.
What language was the whole Testament
originally written in?
What language was the New Testament
originally written in?
And what language was the Book of Mormon
originally written in?
English, right?
Well, it was written in English, yeah.
It was written in America,
and they had it written in England.
It was written in America in the 1800s
by Joseph Smith.
So here's the deal.
Theirs is always translated right,
because they got the original,
the Book of Mormon.
Isn't that convenient?
But when it comes to the Bible,
oh, it's filled with mistakes.
Which is why,
while Joseph Smith was on this earth,
he spent time making his own Bible translation
called the Joseph Smith Translation,
abbreviated the JST.
And the Joseph Smith translation
was not based on him going back
to the Greek or Hebrew.
It was given him directly from God.
Okay?
And one of the five holy books of Mormonism
is the Pearl of Great Price,
which is just an excerpt
from the Joseph Smith translation of the Bible.
Because, you see, the Mormons don't even use
the Joseph Smith translation.
They don't use it.
They use what version?
The King James Version.
But it's filled with mistakes.
Because the Joseph Smith translation,
even though it's straight from God,
they don't use it.
But if you didn't finish it,
they use the part of it they like.
Okay?
But, you see, the point is
that if you really pin them down on something,
they'll just tell you,
well, you know what?
That part's not translated correctly.
How many of you have had a Mormon...
Yeah.
You give them the...
You show them it.
That part's just not translated right.
So here's my challenge to the Latter-day Saints,
the Mormons.
Create a Bible translation that's right.
I mean, if you're going to sit there and say
over and over again for 150 years and more,
it's not translated right.
It's not translated right.
It's not translated.
You've got millions and millions of dollars
translated.
Yeah.
That's right.
And then create something that's right.
But they don't want it to be right
because this isn't what they care about.
It's what their prophet says
and what the Book of Mormon says.
That's what they believe in.
Because if this book was an important thing to them,
they wouldn't use a translation
that they say is filled with errors.
See how that doesn't make any sense?
They got millions of dollars.
They got a skyscraper up to heaven in Salt Lake City.
They got all their TV ads.
Maybe they could pull down a few TV ads for a while
and a few of their YouTube ads
and a few of their Google ads,
and maybe they could translate the Bible.
But they won't.
You can translate it any way you want.
It's going to say that there's one God.
It's going to say faith in Jesus Christ
unless you just get some divine revelation
that is completely wrong
and I'm just going to make up my own version
called the Joseph Smith translation.
Now let me tell you something.
It's a cult
because this is not their authority at all.
It's just what a man says.
Now look.
They say,
Well, there's always been a prophet on the earth.
Yeah, except that the prophets of the Bible
never contradicted God's word.
Do you ever see Jesus saying,
Oh, the Old Testament wasn't translated properly.
Show me one place where Jesus said,
Unfortunately, the rendering here is a little bit wrong
in the originals.
Show me one place where Jesus contradicted.
He said,
Think not that I've come to destroy the law of the prophets.
I came not to destroy the fulfilled.
He said,
Verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass,
one shot or one tittle,
so in the wise past can the law to all be fulfilled.
He didn't come and change the Old Testament.
He didn't come and change what was already taught.
He didn't come and contradict Moses
and contradict the book of Psalms.
He quoted Moses.
He quoted the book of Psalms
and he fulfilled those things.
Also, did you notice that the Old Testament prophesied
Jesus hundreds of times and thousands of times.
So where does the Bible prophesy the book of Mormon?
Where did God tell us,
Oh, by the way,
I'm going to come and appear to the Indians,
you know, hundreds of years from now
and create a whole new thing.
No, he said the next time you see him,
every eye shall see him
and he'll be coming in the clouds.
That's the next time we're going to see him.
Even so, come Lord Jesus.
And he wasn't saying come to the Indians.
He said come in the clouds where we can all see him.
The bottom line is
that every prophet in the Bible
was always consistent with the previous word of God
that was revealed.
Every prophet of the Old Testament
was consistent with Moses and his preaching.
Every prophet in the New Testament
that was a true prophet of God,
every book in the New Testament
reinforces and strengthens
what the Bible is already saying.
But the book of Mormon contradicts
what the Bible is saying.
And these other teachings,
because by the way,
Mormonism only got weirder after Joseph Smith died.
You know, and I mean,
a lot of the other really out there doctrines
even came after he was gone
because they've had a succession of these prophets
that basically are constantly
in contradiction of the scriptures.
And so the way you can tell if it's a true prophet
is everything they're saying lining up with this book.
That's a true prophet.
If somebody's contradicting everything in the Bible
and preaching something completely different
and actually preaching what Satan preached in the Bible,
well then that's a pretty good sign
that that prophet is not of God.
I don't care what wonder.
And I don't even think Joseph Smith even did any wonders.
What did he do?
Park the river that separates Illinois from Missouri?
I don't think he did any.
What's that river called?
Does anybody know?
I don't think he did any.
Let's see here.
I don't know what he did.
It might be the Mississippi.
I don't know.
It shows how much I know.
The geography, that is.
But there's another religion out there
that's so similar to Mormonism,
and it's Islam.
And really Mormonism is just a white man's Islam.
It's really all it is.
It's Islam for white people.
Joseph Smith is basically just a copycat of Mohammed.
Because if you go back and look at Islam,
what is Islam?
A man went into the wilderness,
revelation from an angel of God,
and the Muslims will tell you the same thing as the Mormons
when you knock at your door.
I knocked on the door of a Mormon,
or I'm sorry, a Muslim in Tempe.
And when I knocked on the door of this Muslim,
he said, we believe in the Bible.
We believe in Jesus.
He said, I have to believe in Jesus to be a Muslim.
We believe in the Bible.
Because they believe in Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed.
And they believe they're all brothers.
But he said this to me.
He said, Jesus is not the son of God.
He never claimed to be the son of God.
I said, can I show you in the Bible where he claimed to be the son of God?
I opened the Bible and showed him,
and he said, yeah, that part is not translated right.
He said, that part has been corrupted.
He said, the Bible you're holding in your hand
is nothing like the original Bible.
He said, it's been changed and corrupted
and lost in the translation.
He said, the Bible never says this.
And I said, can I show you where it says that?
Well, that part's wrong.
That's not really in the Bible.
Your Bible's wrong.
And really, the Muslims claim to believe the Bible.
Did you know that?
Did you know that the Muslims claim to believe the Old Testament?
And did you know that the Muslims claim to believe
that Jesus was a true prophet,
but that what we have today in our hands
is not what they actually said?
And that's exactly what Mormonism says.
Mormonism says that basically the Bible is filled with mistakes,
has been lost in translation and transmission,
and it's not preserved.
Both Joseph Smith and Mohammed both had a multitude of wives.
Joseph Smith had multiple wives.
Mohammed had five wives.
Joseph Smith was married to a 12, 13-year-old girl.
Mohammed was married to a nine-year-old girl.
I was outsold him one time and said to a Muslim,
Mohammed was married to an 11-year-old.
And they said, no.
She was nine.
And that's literally what I'm saying.
I mean, they looked indignant, like, you're wrong.
She was nine years old.
And they gave me her name, and they told all about how his wife,
it was his age, died, and then he married this nine-year-old.
And then he married four more wives.
And I said, I thought your religion only allowed you to have four wives.
Why did Mohammed have five?
And they said, well, you know, he was allowed to have five.
Like everybody else was allowed to have four.
That's literally what they told me.
And you see, Satan hasn't changed, has he?
In the Garden of Eden, it was, you'll be as gods.
You know, in Isaiah 14, he's trying to be God.
In Ezekiel 28, he's trying to be God.
In the seventh century, eighth century, ninth century,
with Islam spreading throughout the world,
it was multiple wives.
It was an angel from heaven told us.
It was the Bible has been corrupted.
And it's the same thing today in 2010 in Mesa, Arizona.
Be like God.
And the only reason, my friend, that they don't have multiple wives today
is because it's illegal in the United States,
because they had multiple wives in the early days of Mormonism.
They had a multiplicity of wives until it was to the point
where the federal government was literally going to go in there
and do a Janet Reno on them, okay,
and basically everything and attack them with literal weapons
when they finally said, okay, we'll stop, you know,
and they issued their famous proclamation
that they would not have polygamy ever again.
And they had to phase it out, because there were a lot of people
who already had multiple wives.
So they phased it out because of the fact
that they were being attacked by the federal government.
That's why. That's what really happened.
Coles. What's that?
It was a new revelation.
Yeah, it was really convenient how this new revelation came
that all of a sudden, you know, we're only supposed to have one wife now,
even though just recently we were being told to marry all these young women, okay.
And look, Satan is the same.
We're not ignorant of his devices.
It's a wicked religion, my friend.
You say, what are we going to do? How do we reach them?
Just preach them the Gospel.
There's no trick to reach them.
God always has a trick, I think, to reaching them.
You know, when you find that trick, let me know.
Because it seems like when I talk to these Mormons,
you can show them anything out of the Bible and they don't care.
And I remember giving the Gospel to a Mormon relative of mine
for an hour and a half straight,
just showing her verse after verse after verse after verse
after verse after verse.
And she said, you can show me anything you want.
It will not change what I believe.
And she said, I know what I've felt.
That's what she said.
Now, I'm not saying it's hopeless, because I've met Mormons who were saved.
I've met Mormons who have gotten saved.
And I've seen Mormons get saved, but you know what?
It's tough to get Mormons saved.
It's tough. It's going to take prayer and fasting.
It's going to take work.
It's going to take preaching.
But we ought to recognize it for what it is, my friend,
and not accept it as Christianity.
And today you'll run into Christians who think that Mormons are saved.
They're not saved. They don't believe in the God of the Bible.
But the worst part is you'll see Baptists
who begin to have the character traits of Mormonism.
Now, listen to me.
If I see a Baptist church or an independent Baptist
having the traits of Mormonism,
you know where I know that that came from?
I know where Mormonism came from, Satan.
I know that that church is being influenced by Satan,
and I can see that mentality.
Here's the Baptist version.
Oh, the translation isn't right on the King James.
How many times have you heard that in a Baptist church?
Same thing.
Yea hath God said?
I mean, is that really what God said?
And not trying to tell us that there's some better version out there.
Oh, no. Just none of them are right.
They're all corrupt.
It's the closest or the best we've got,
but it's not always right.
And then you pin them down on something and it's,
oh, well, it's not translated right
when the Bible explicitly says something.
You see other Baptists who just refuse to change what they believe
when confronted with God's Word
because of their own tradition, because of what they believe.
That comes from Satan.
Putting something else in authority above God's Word.
You see the worship of man.
You see the lifting up of a pastor
or the lifting up of a leader among Baptists or any other religion.
Whether it be the Catholics with the Pope,
or whether it be the Mormons with their prophet,
where that man's words are more trusted
than what the Holy Bible itself says,
I can tell you where that came from.
I can tell you where it came from
when a man can stand up and preach
and people will believe what he preaches
more than what the Bible says.
I sat in Bible college, my friend,
and my teacher at Bible college, Chris Tech,
stood up in class, in Bible doctor's class.
He said this repeatedly, over and over,
on the record, literally scores of times.
Anybody who's been there can tell you
that they probably heard this quote from Chris Tech.
He said, I have more confidence
in Pastor Scott's doubt
than I have in my own certainty.
Did you hear me?
And kids are literally, not kids,
but young people at college
are literally writing that down as a quote.
That was a great quote.
Let me say it again.
I have more confidence in Dr. Scott's doubt
than in my own certainty.
Because he was quoting things where Dr. Scott said,
I think, here's what I think this means in the Bible.
Here's what I think it means.
And he said, I'd rather go with what he thinks
than what I know for sure.
That's a quote, my friend.
Because you know what I know for sure?
That the Bible's the word of God.
You know what I know for sure?
That the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin.
You know what I know for sure?
That there's only one God and one mediator
between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.
You know what I know for sure?
That I'm saved through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ
and nobody's doubt means anything to me.
And that's a cult-like, it's of Satan.
Are you hearing me?
It is.
It's cultic to sit there and point at a man
and say, I have more confidence in his doubt
than in my own certainty.
You are not teaching these pastors what needs to be taught,
which is that God's word is the only thing we're certain of.
It's the only thing that we should have confidence in.
It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man.
Psalm 118, 8.
And so we need to watch out.
You say, I don't feel like this sermon applies to me
because I'm not a Mormon.
I've never been a Mormon.
I'm never going to be a Mormon.
I don't want to go soloing in Mesa.
Hey, I don't blame you
because I don't want to go soloing in Mesa either.
But there's that big map out there
and there's that big spot that Brother Gregory and I
have been going soloing in Mesa.
He and I are going where others don't want to go.
And Brother Gregory and I are also going in Mesa.
I don't want to go either.
But you know, we've got to.
We've got to preach the gospel to every creature.
And I'll tell you something.
This sermon ought to apply to us
because you say, well, none of these things apply
because I'm not a Mormon.
I don't know anymore.
Here's the thing, though.
We know where these things came from.
They came from Satan.
Watch out for these things creeping into your life
or into your church.
Watch out for pride.
Watch out for the I will be like God attitude.
Watch out for lifting up a man as a prophet.
Nothing wrong with being a prophet.
But you know what?
You better preach what the Bible says
like every biblical prophet did
and not contradict this book.
Because anything you say as a prophet
that contradicts this book right here
is not from God.
Because God is not the author of confusion.
Amen.
It should all be consistent.
Watch out for the spirit of Mormonism,
the spirit of Latter-day Satan.
Wherever it may crop up is on the end.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, please just bless this sermon to our ears.
Help us to never lift ourselves up
and think of ourselves above what we ought to think.
Help us to remember we're just men.
We're just human beings.
We're not God.
We never will be God.
And God was never like us.
Father, please just help us
to be able to reach the Mormons, dear God,
because they're a tough crowd, let me tell you.
You can show them and preach it to them,
but it's going to have to be your spirit, dear God,
that's going to do this.
And so I pray that as we begin
to knock a lot of doors in Mesa,
as we finish out Tempe
and really begin to do a lot more doors in Mesa,
as we go in all four directions from our church, dear God,
I just pray that you would please
go before us and soften the hearts.
God, please, we love these people.
Soften the hearts and help them
to see the light of the glorious gospel
shining through your word as it's preached.
Give us boldness, dear God.
Give us wisdom.
Give us the power of the Holy Spirit
as we go and read the gospel.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.