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What Do They Have to Hide?
We have been watching the new breed of Mormons ads on TV lately. They are all about “Hey, look at us, we are just like you” I remember back when, as the pressure heated up in Utah for the Olympics, the Mormon PR folks were working at high speed to change their blotchy veneer of deceit… We cried out, then and again, now:
Watch out World!
As the Billy Graham crusade came to a close, the camera panned back from the pulpit area to show the vast arena. The altar area in front of the speaking platform was filled with people involved in surrendering their lives to the love and grace of the Lord Jesus. We sat there quietly watching it on television, each of us lost in our private thoughts, contemplating those many lives changed, by Biblical truths, families renewed by Biblical principles, marriages restored by Biblical concepts. Suddenly, our thoughts were pulled back to reality as the scene switched from the crusade to a TV spot, encouraging us to remain in our seats and watch the special program to follow.
What came next was a half-hour presentation created by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) and timed to capture the Billy Graham audience when so many of those viewers were spiritually vulnerable. The pitch drew them into dialing an 800 number for one of several free videos. The catch was that two young Mormon missionaries would deliver any offered video. The fields were white for harvesting.
The Mormon broadcast, What Is Real? which asserted that they were a Bible believing Church centered in Jesus, was aired in 77 cities, with their 800 number scrolling along the bottom of the screen. How many hurting people, hearts breaking for a relationship with the Creator God after the crusade, watched that program, called the number, and were snatched away from the arms of the waiting Christ, drawn away into a lie? Too many!
These impeccably produced LDS specials and the follow-up videos were designed to reach people with words and pictures that seduced troubled hearts into believing the Mormon deception. Phrases such as "we wanted more of something...we didn't know what it was...we were empty...I wanted to feel alive...I didn't get married to get divorced...God had a plan for people like us, forever...if the Lord could only help us...listen to your heart." No wonder so many people fell prey to that sweet imitation of Truth. Even the music was soothing and promised peace.
Nothing in the program so much as hinted that the message being proclaimed was anything other than a compassionate evangelical plea to begin a relationship with God. In addition, what could be wrong with that? Nothing, unless there was more to the story than was being told, unless the words being spoken had double meanings. It's not what LDS programs said but what they didn't say.
Why must the Mormon Church continually hide behind Christian terminology? Why is it that not one of its special programs, paid advertisements, or public service campaigns ever tells people what separates Mormon theology from orthodox Christianity and let's the viewer decide for themselves?
What are the Mormons afraid of?
If they have the Real Truth then stop the bait and switch tactics!
Be wary of this Kinder, Gentler’ Mormonism. Beware of the gentle, soft voices and sweetness of the Glenn Becks and the Mitt Romneys. Beware of those smiling young men and women standing at your door. They are playing you.
Mormonism seems to fit so well with the nature of the average, hardworking and neighborly member of the LDS church. We have noticed a change in the way the LDS Church presents itself to its members, and more importantly, to the world. For the most part, it is no longer appearing as the ‘one, true church.’ Instead, it is evidently being ‘sold’ as just a better, higher-octane form of Christianity. Closer to the center of God’s purpose for us. To the world and to its new members, it does not focus on the goal of every worthy Mormon, that of becoming a god or goddess, too, like the god of this world.
This, of course, marks a major change from the Mormonism whose Standard Works proclaim that all the creeds of historic Christianity were ‘an abomination in his [God’s] sight; that those professors [of those creeds] were corrupt; that they draw near to me [God] with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a forms of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.’(Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith History, 1:19.)
Add this official statement to others made by LDS leaders in which Christian churches are ‘engines of hell,’ ‘the great and abominable church,’ or their doctrines are ‘such utter nonsense and so palpably false that to believe [them] is to lose one’s salvation.’
Within the last few years, this hot-blooded polemic has been stopped. In fact, it is almost as if there is a relation to the heat that has been applied to Mormonism by Christians and the way LDS leaders have cooled their rhetorical jets.
Let’s not forget the ‘Great Apostasy’ doctrine that all Mormons had always been taught; that the Church of Jesus Christ vanished from the earth soon after the death of the last apostle. For this, they will cite the only scriptural proof in their entire bag (2 Thess.2: 3), failing to understand that this scripture, speaking about the falling away, obviously applies to the time right before the appearance of the Beast (son of perdition) and the end of the world. Since the world didn’t end after the second century, and the Son of Perdition didn’t appear, obviously, this is a false interpretation.
However, it is critical to understand the fallacy of this approach. First, Jesus taught the apostles that he would be with the church always, ‘even unto the end of the world.’ (Matt.28:20). He promised them that the gates of hell would not prevail against His church (Matt. 16:18). If Mormonism is right, then Jesus broke His promise, and the gates of hell prevailed against the church! It would seem that the Mormon has to discount Jesus, if he is to believe in this key ‘Apostasy’ doctrine.
Remember, there is such a radical discontinuity between Mormon ‘truth’ and Christian truth that it would be impossible to build a Mormon life on an orthodox Christian foundation. It would create a spiritual Babel that makes the Leaning Tower of Pisa look like superb engineering!
Mormonism’s ‘god’ evolved from a man and is neither omniscient nor omnipresent. The Bible’s God is an omniscient (Rom.11:33), eternally unchanging (Malachi 3:6), and a pure Spirit (John 4:24). It should be logically self-evident that these two ‘gods’ cannot co-exist in the same universe; nor can they both be true. One is true, and one is false.
It is evident from the dearth of scriptural support that that the main reason for joining and believing the LDS church is nice experiences. However, as we must continually remind our LDS friends, the human heart is sinful and fallen. It is deceived and deceitful to the core (Jer.17:9. Prov.14:12)!
To do something because it ‘feels right’ can often be the worst possible reason for doing it; especially if the act flies so clearly in the face of scripture! The ultimate problem with Mormonism’s new approach is that it is untenable, either historically or logically. If the Apostasy occurred, then historic Christian churches are false. If it didn’t, then Mormonism is false. The way Joseph Smith drew his theological line in the sand leaves any other option out of the picture.
Doctrine cannot be 95% good and 5% arsenic, or it would be the theological equivalent of rat poison! This means that the LDS bland admission that Reformation churches may have some of the truth is spiritual nonsense! Christianity is entirely and completely true, and Mormonism is spiritual poison. All the nice, warm experiences of those really wonderful people and the best TV ads in the business cannot change that eternal truth. Those watching the new breed of Mormon advertisements need to be warned of the sweet aroma of this soul stealing lie.
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