Sermon Tone Analysis

*Mormon History*

The Mormon movement began with "the prophet" Joseph Smith, Jr. in the year 1820.

Joseph Smith was born in 1805.

His mother, Lucy, was involved in occult practices and visions, while his father, Joseph, Sr., consumed much time with imaginary treasure digging (including the booty of Captain Kidd).

According to Mormon writings (Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith - History 1:1-25), on a day in 1820, Joseph was praying in the woods when he received a vision from God the Father and Jesus.

It was revealed to Joseph that the church was in apostasy and he was the chosen one to launch a new dispensation.

Being unwilling to drop his current occupation with his father,  Joseph put his "calling" on hold for three years.

Then, according to his own account (Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith - History 1:29-54), he was paid a bedside visit by the angel Moroni in 1823.

Moroni, who professed to be the glorified son of a man named Mormon (who had been dead 1400 years), told Joseph about a book of golden plates which contained "the fullness of the everlasting Gospel."

This book was said to have been buried at Cumorah Hill, near Palmyra, New York, some 1400 years earlier by the man named Mormon.

Four years later (1827), Joseph supposedly dug up the golden plates along with a gigantic pair of spectacles which he called "the Urim and Thummim."

The spectacles were for translating the hieroglyphics on the plates.

With the help of his wife and a friend named Oliver Cowdery, Joseph translated the plates and published the Book of Mormon in 1830.

Later that same year, Joseph, his wife, his brothers (Hyrum and Samuel), and Cowdery established the "Church of Jesus Christ," which is known today as the "Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints."

The Book of Mormon contains many plagiarisms of the King James English (at least 25,000 words).

This is strange since the plates were supposed to have been in the ground many centuries before the King James Bible was completed in 1611!

The Book of Mormon also contains many errors such as claims of elephants in the Western Hemisphere and advanced metal producing capabilities in America before 400 A.D. 

            Joseph was a polygamist with at least twenty- seven wives (some say over 60 wives).

His followers left New York for Ohio, and then moved to Missouri.

The Missouri governor ran them out of the state, so they settled in Nauvoo, Illinois, and built the state's largest city.

In 1844, Joseph and Hyrum were thrown in jail.

Then an angry mob stormed the jail and murdered them both.

Naturally, this "martyrdom" insured the perpetual reverence of the great "prophet" Joseph Smith.

The "church" then split.

The Smith family headed for Independence, Missouri and started what is now the "Recognized Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints."

However, the majority of Smith's followers chose Brigham Young as their new captain.

To escape U.S. laws, Young led the Mormons from Nauvoo to Salt Lake City in 1847 (which then belonged to Mexico).

For the next thirty years, Young and his "saints" laid the foundation stones of the Mormon cult.

Today the Mormon church is administrated by its "General Authorities."

These authorities consist of the "First Presidency," the "Counsel of Twelve Apostles," the "First Quorum of the Seventy" and its presidency, the "Presiding Bishoprick," and the "Patriarch of the Church."

Male Mormons over twelve years of age are divided into priesthoods.

The Aaronic order is the lesser priesthood, and the Melchizedek order is the higher.

The church is divided into thousands of "wards" and "stakes," with over 2000 branches and 180 missions, and over 5,000,000 members.

Mormons are very missionary-minded people, with over 26,000 active missionaries.

However, much of this missionary army consists of young men and women in their early twenties who must serve two years in missionary work while supporting themselves.

The Mormon people of today are highly respected in our society, but there is nothing respectable about their doctrines.

\\ *Mormon Teachings*

*The Deity of Man Promoted*

            Mormons teach that man can become God, and that God was once a man:

"God himself, the Father of us all, is a glorified, exalted immortal resurrected man!" (Bruce McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, pp.

322-23, 517, 643) \\ "...God himself was once as we are now and is an exalted man and sits enthroned in yonder heavens..." (Journal of Discourses, V6, P3, 1844) \\ "As man is, God once was: as God is, man may become."

(Lorenzo Snow, quoted in Milton R. Hunter, the Gospel Through the Ages, pp.

105-106)

            This is plain and simple heresy.

Nowhere does the Bible say or imply that God was ever a man, or that man can become God!

Malachi 3:6 says, "For I am the LORD, I change not..." How could this be true if God was once a man?

Genesis 1:1 states that God existed "in the beginning" before man was ever created.

John 4:24 states that God is a "spirit," and Jesus tells us in John 1:18 that no man has seen God at any time.

Numbers 23:19 says that "God is not a man that he should lie; neither the son of man that he should repent."

God has always been God, and no one has ever "become" God.

*Deity of Jesus Christ and the Trinity Denied*

            The Deity of Jesus Christ is a fundamental doctrine of Christianity, yet the Mormons deny this truth.

Exalting man to "god status" is apparently alright, but Jesus Christ is not acknowledged as the eternal Son of God in the Mormon church.

The Mormon Jesus was a preexisting spirit who was exalted, just as Mormon followers hope to be exalted someday.

Many Mormons today hold that God the Father has sexual relations with Mary to produce a body of flesh for Jesus to live in.

but some say that Brigham Young was “inspired” when he wrote that the Father of Jesus “was the first of the human family, Adam…Jesus, our elder brother, was begotten in the flesh by the same character that was in the Garden of Eden, and who is our Father in heaven (journal of Discourses, Vol.

I,pg.51).

A official statement from the Mormon church claims: “A paramount doctrine…is a belief in God the Father; His Son, Jesus Christ; and the Holy Ghost.

The three make up the Godhead.

They are one in purpose but separate in being (LDS internet sight).

This sounds very similar to Christianity, but it is not.

Mormonism rejects the Holy Trinity.

The key to the Mormon doctrine is found in the words, “one in purpose, but separate in being.”

Joseph Smith wrote, “The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s; the Son also;but the holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of spirit” (D.C., 130:22)  

            God is a Trinity (I Jn. 5:7), and the second Member of that Trinity is the Lord Jesus Christ.

John 1:1 says that "the Word was God," and John 1:14 tells us that "the Word was made flesh."

Jesus Christ is the Word incarnate, and John 1:1 tells us that the Word was God; so Jesus Christ is God.

Jesus allowed Thomas to address Him as "My Lord and my God" in John 20:28.

In Isaiah 9:6, He is called "The mighty God" and "The everlasting Father," and we read in Micah 5:2 that Jesus is "from everlasting."

Our Lord allowed people to worship him in John 10:38 and in Matthew 14:33, and since He is "God with us" (Mat.

1:23) He also has power to forgive sins (Mk.

2:5).

Jesus Christ is clearly Deity, yet this doctrine is denied by the Mormons.

*Multiple Authorities*

            The Bible declares, "To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them."

(Isa.

8:20) However, the Mormon Church claims that other writings, such as the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith's writings are also authoritative.

In fact, Joseph Smith taught his people to doubt the accuracy of the Bible: "...it was apparent that many important points touching the salvation of men, had been taken from the Bible, or lost before it was compiled."

(Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 10)

*Mormon Writings Support Polygamy*

            "...if any man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse another, and the first give her consent, and if he espouse the second, and they are virgins, and have vowed to no other man, then he is justified; he cannot commit adultery...And if he have ten virgins given unto him by this law, he cannot commit adultery."

(Doctrines and Covenants, 132:61, 62)

            Jesus Christ held a slightly different view (Mark 10:6- 9).

There is no way a man can be "one flesh" with more than one woman.

A man and his wife are supposed to picture Christ and his church (Eph.

5:23-32), but this symbolism is shattered by the Mormon heresy of Polygamy.

*True** Church** Theory*

            The Mormon book, The Pearl of Great Price, claims that all other Christian groups are "corrupt" and are an "abomination" in God's sight (Joseph Smith, 2:19).

Such claims as this are based on the unscriptural assumption that the Lord Jesus Christ has a specific religious organization on the earth today, complete with a name, a membership, and a leadership, which makes up His "true church."

This doctrine is found nowhere in God's word.

Everyone who believes in Christ as their Saviour is a member of His church, which is a spiritual body of baptized believers (Eph.

4:4; 5:23-32; Col. 1:18-24; Heb.

12:23; Rev. 19:7; 5:9-10; 21:9).

*Other False Teachings*

            The Mormons deny the Trinity and the existence of a literal burning Hell, yet they promote polytheism (many gods), baptism for the dead, and the notion that Jesus and Satan were originally spirit brothers!

Friend, make no mistake about it--Mormonism is a dangerous cult.

In the eyes of man, the Mormons seem very respectable, but the light of God's word reveals the true wolves behind the sheep clothing.

Jesus said, "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves."

(Mat.

7:15) Don't look at their nice families, their clean-cut hair, and their friendly "missionaries."

LOOK AT THEIR DOCTRINES!

(I Tim.