After Centuries of Confusion the Truth... is Still Being Attacked!

We've probably all seen by now the massive campaign that the Mormon church has been waging via the TV commercials. Their tagline is "After centuries of confusion the truth has been restored." I've got to hand it to them from the standpoint of their marketing and enthusiasm. Of course the only problem is that they are preaching another gospel. This is exactly what we are warned about in Galatians 1:8-9,

"8But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. 9As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed."

Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (the Mormon church), claimed that an angel did appear to him. And if Joseph Smith had been a Bible believing Christian, and this were to have actually happened (which is more than questionable), he would have known to reject the message of this angel. Eventually Joseph Smith would found a religion that would exalt men to gods and lower God to man.

Christians need to be very aware about what Mormon's believe and its incompatibility with Scripture. Here is a ----> "link" <---- that should make anyone who knows and loves the gospel of Christ shudder. In this link you will see a video of a person talking about how unfair and unloving it would be for God to send to Hell people who have not heard about Jesus, and people who have done "good things" (Rom 3:10-12) but are not Christians.

Hello! What about the fact that the Bible says we are all sinners and deserve HELL! (Romans 1-3) It's not unfair that people go to Hell! It's unfair that God had to die in the place of sinners because we rebelled against Him! But how wonderful is His grace that He would do it anyway! You must repent of your sin and trust in Christ alone for salvation! If you do not, you go to Hell, and you deserve to. I deserve to, and I praise God that I'm notgetting what I deserve because Christ has saved me! There is only one way to Heaven (John 14:6, Eph. 2:8-9). But this is just a small part of the dangerous message that is being preached by the Mormon church.

It is because of cult groups like this that deceive people and pull them away from the true Jesus and His gospel that I am an apologist. This is why I am creating a new "site" that will be a resource for defending the Biblical Christian faith. But since my site has a long way to go, I suggest that you check out "Alpha and Omega Ministries" and James White's book's, "Is the Mormon My Brother" and "Letters to a Mormon Elder" for more information on the Latter Day Saints.

Know what you believe and why. Don't be silent about the truth! If you don't share Christ with your neighbor, someone else might share a pseudo Christ with them instead.

-Jacob

Polytheism, Human gods....Mormon Theology

The following is a link to Alpha and Omega Ministries blog. The artical is written by James White. It's a fairly short read, but it points out some things about LDS beliefs that are clearly incompatible with genuine Christianity. And it certainly shows that Mormons are indeed polytheist's despite what they say.

http://aomin.org/index.php?itemid=1999


-Jacob

What in the World is the Canon?

Notice the word is canon, not cannon. As one of my professors pointed out to be in my apologetics class, cannon with two consecutive "n's" is the kind that goes boom. However canon spelled with just one "n" in the middle is something else entirely. I've listened to a lot of debates by James White, who is by far my favorite Christian apologist. I've listened to him debate atheist, Romans Catholics, liberal scholars from the Jesus Seminar, and LDS. In many of those debates, in some way shape or form, the issue of the canon comes up.

For those who are not aware of the theological term, let me explain what is meant by a theologian when they say canon. The word "canon" literally means "standard." And when the church discusses issues related to the canon of Scripture they mean which books they consider to be authoritative Scripture. For instance the Protestant's hold that the canonical book of Scripture equal only 66 books in the Old and New Testaments. Roman Catholics add 7 to that list because they include books like 1&2 Macabees, Tobit and other's as part of Scripture. Then you have groups like the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints (LDS) who take the protestant canon, but then claim the book of Mormon, Doctrines and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price are also Scripture.

So when you hear the word canon used in theological circles, understand that it refers to the books which are to be considered Scripture. As I mentioned before the word canon means standard. And a big question of the argument for what books are to be included in the list of Scripture is "by what standard does a writing become Scripture?"

I agree with James White in the way he explains what makes a writing part of the canon. In 2 Timothy 3:16-17 we read the following:

"16All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work."

Our focal point for this discussion should center around "All Scripture is breathed out by God." Some translations of course read "All Scripture is inspired by God" but the "God breathed" would be a more literal and accurate translation of the Greek word "Theopneustos." So ultimately the answer to the question by what standard should books be judged to know if they are Scripture is "are they God breathed?" Did God "inspire" the books or not? That is the ultimate standard for the canon of Scripture.

What does this mean? Well obviously, for one, it means that the next logical question is "How do we know if a writing is God breathed?" Which is a great question. But also it means that there is indeed an infallible canon of Scripture. Not just any book can be included in the canon, only those that are God breathed have a place there. There is no room in the canon for any work, no matter how good it might be, even if it is historically accurate, theologically correct, and so on, if it is not God breathed. This is to say, a writing does not belong in the cannon merely because it is true, or merely because it is well liked and or received, but only if indeed God is the divine author.

There is only one true canon of Scripture and God infallibly knows that canon because He is the author. God (of course) knows what He did and did not "breathe out" or "inspire."

But then there is the canon that man has come up with, and obviously as I have already pointed out, different groups have serious disagreements about what belongs in the canon.

All of this to say that there is indeed a right answer, there are indeed books that belong in Scripture and there are those that do not. So who is right? Are the protestants right who claim only 66 books? Are the Roman Catholics right who add 7 more to that list? What about the LDS? Could all of us be wrong? Who first decided on this list of books or that? What does church history say about all of this? How did we get the Old Testament Canon? Was the New Testament canon formed in the same way? Do we have all the books that are God breathed?

The List of questions could go on for miles I'm sure. Hopefully this gets your wheel's turning. I hope to get a chance to start a study on this very issue sometime soon. After I finish the series on God's Sovereignty in Salvation I hope to make this our next adventure. We'll see what happens when I start school in August at Criswell, hopefully I'll find the time to continue to post regularly.

Eventually I'll begin to learn Greek, Hebrew and Latin, wont that add some fun to our talks here! Anyway, we know what the canon is, it is whatever that is God breathed, but how do we know that? I look forward to the study and I encourage you to go to www.aomin.org and download some of James Whites debates and lectures on things like Sola Scriptura and the sufficiency of Scripture. That will clue you in on how I will largely approach this topic.

In Him -Jacob