The most dangerous lie sounds like the truth

How many of you have ever played two truths and a lie? It's a game that we would play so often as kids. And the whole point of the game was to see how well you truly knew someone. So we're going to play this game right now. I'm going to give you two truths and an untruth, a non-truth. Now, it's for a sermon illustration, so it's fine. I know we're not supposed to lie in church, but here we go.

Two truths and an untruth. Here's the first one. I have been chased by elephants. The second one is that I played drums for a hardcore band. And the third one is this: my real name is Brad. So here we go. How many of you would say the first one is a lie, that I have not been chased by elephants? You are wrong. I 100% have. I'm from South Africa. It's what happens in South Africa. You get chased. How many of you would say that I've never played drums for a hardcore band? I 100% have. If you go online, you'll see I had the hair. I had the gauges. I had everything.

The lie is that my name is Brad. My name is not Brad. My name is actually Bradley. Okay. Okay. Y'all are going to fight me on this. But no, no, no. Here's what you need to know. The most dangerous lie doesn't sound like a lie. The most dangerous lie sounds like the truth.

We started a series last week called Cults and Counterfeits. And what we're looking at is what the gospel truly is, and then some of the religions that will come around and distort it. We looked at what the gospel is. What the gospel really is. And today what we're going to do is we're going to start looking at some of the counterfeits.

But let me just explain a bit what we shared last week. We talked about counterfeits. And I told you about the Secret Service, who in 1865 was created in order to spot counterfeit currencies. And we said the way that they were trained was not by learning to spot the fake. It was by learning to spot the real. And if you know the real well enough, then all of a sudden you can start to see all the counterfeits. If you look at the color-shifting ink, if you take a look at the watermark that's supposed to appear, if you take a look at the security serial numbers — the same way that there are ways you can tell if currency is counterfeit, there are ways that you can tell whether a gospel is counterfeit.

We talked about a detector, and we said there are three questions that we have to be able to ask. The first one is this: what is your final authority? The second question is this: who do you say Jesus is? And the third question is this: how are you saved? Those are the three questions, the security questions we can ask of any religion to determine whether or not it is a true religion.

And today what we're going to do is we're going to be studying Mormonism and Jehovah's Witnesses. Mormonism and Jehovah's Witnesses. And if you're here and you are a part of any of that, we're glad that you're here. Welcome to Spirit Church. We're going to be flying today.

First thing I need you to know is this. Counterfeits are not new. They have been around from the beginning of time. Jesus said this. Matthew 7:15, "Watch out for false prophets, because they come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves, and by their fruit you will recognize them." Counterfeits isn't something that we need to be afraid of. What it is, is something we need to guard against.

Peter says it this way. 2 Peter 2, he says, "But there were also false prophets in Israel, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will cleverly teach destructive heresies and deny the Master who bought them. In this way, they will bring sudden destruction on themselves." Even when the disciples were alive, there were cults and there were counterfeits. The heresies aren't new, even though the religions are. And what we're studying today are two things that have been around for less than 200 years, but what they're saying has been around for centuries.

Now, one of the questions I have to answer is this. Why even do this? Why even talk about counterfeits? Can't we all just love each other? Right? I think especially in a politically correct world, we're like, why do we even need to talk about this? Is it even helpful to name things? Is it even helpful for us to study this?

Remember Jesus's words. He says that there are wolves who are coming among the sheep. I don't know about y'all. If I was a shepherd, I'm not going to be like, "That's a cute wolf." When you see a wolf, what do you do? You call it out. That's the entire focus. Paul, talking to pastors, he says this, Titus 1:9, that they must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, that they'll be able to rebuke those who contradict it.

So you're like, well, can we rebuke it without mentioning names? Well, here's what Jesus says. Revelation 2:20. "Nevertheless, I have this against you. You tolerate that woman Jezebel" — there's a name — "who calls herself a prophet. By her teaching she misleads My servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols." And there's about five other verses I can give you where Paul and Jesus, they're all calling out specific people, specific things. And I want you to notice what Jesus is saying. His big issue is not only that Jezebel exists. It's that the church tolerates it. And He says you need to do something about it.

So that's what we're going to do today. We're going to study so that we can help. We're going to study so that we can reach. I believe this: that God is calling us to be a missional church, and we can't reach people when we don't even understand what they believe. The Bible says in 2 Timothy 2:15, "Study to show yourself approved, able to discern rightly the word." 1 Peter 3:15 — and this is, as I was praying this morning, I don't even have this in my notes, I just felt this — "But in your hearts, revere Christ as Lord. And always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you for the reason of the hope that you have." That's what we're doing. We're studying to show ourselves approved, that we can go ahead and give an answer.

Like, I'm thinking of Saint. If Saint was going to be running into a road, how many of you know that I'm not going to be like, "Look at him. He's so cute, running into the road. Look at that traffic. So cute." What do you do? You grab him. You pull him, because you don't want him to be harmed. What we're doing today is we want to understand these things so that we can reach people — that we're not just like, "Oh, they're playing in traffic and this is awesome." No, we want to do whatever we can to pull them in, to be able to share the gospel with them.

So today we're talking about Mormonism and Jehovah's Witnesses. And I think it's actually super interesting that we're studying this this week, because what happened this week is the Pentagon actually released a document that had a bunch of religions. And on the document, one of the things that they said is they defined who were Christians. In fact, I have a picture of that very document, and you can go look it up. What's interesting is they had all these classifications of Christian, and Jehovah's Witnesses — they list it as Christian. So we're going to study that today, because I believe that it is not Christian. It is counterfeit. But then also, you'll see right at the bottom, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, that's Mormonism. It did not list them as Christian. So this week there was this upheaval among LDS, because they were like, "No, no, no, no. We're Christian. That's what we really are. We're Christian."

You need to know this. Let's get some definitions together. What is a counterfeit? A counterfeit is anything that claims to be Christian but denies foundational Christian doctrine. What is a cult? Any group that claims to be Christian but trades God's final word for someone else's. And it's always going to be a person or an organization where what they say trumps what the Bible says. It's crazy that all of this is happening. So we're going to study it.

What I'm going to do is I'm going to give you some history, some scale, so that you can understand these different religions. And then what we're going to do is we're going to hold them up to the detector, and we're going to see what the Bible really says.

Who are Mormons?

So first we're going to talk about this. Who are Mormons? Now that's really hard, because you can ask, who are Christians? How many of you know Christians believe different things? Just as Christians believe different things, Mormons believe different things. And you can even meet a Mormon and you don't even understand what it is that they believe, and they don't even understand what it is that they believe.

But what's different from Christianity and Mormonism is you can't go to christian.org and there is a website that definitely says this is what Christians believe. For Mormonism you can. For Jehovah's Witnesses you can. For Catholicism you can. There is a tradition. There is someone who's able to speak authoritatively for that religion. Very different than what we believe as Christians.

So let me give you some history about the Mormon church. Who are they? Known as the Church of Latter-day Saints. Why Latter-day Saints? In the New Testament, the New Testament calls Christians saints. So they get "saints." The reason they call it "latter day" is because they believe that after the disciples died, the gospel was lost for like 1700 years. It disappeared. And they believe that Joseph Smith actually restored the gospel. That's why they called it Latter-day Saints.

And I'm going to read some stuff straight from their website. It says this: "Following the death of Jesus Christ, wicked people persecuted and killed many church members. Other church members drifted from the principles taught by Jesus Christ and His apostles. The apostles were killed, and the priesthood authority, including the keys to direct and receive revelation from the church, was taken from the earth because the church was no longer led by that authority. Error crept in. Good people and truth remained, but the gospel as established by Jesus Christ was lost." This is on their website. This period is called the great apostasy. "But in 1820, as God had done throughout history, Father in Heaven gave a prophet to restore the gospel and the priesthood to earth." And that prophet's name was Joseph Smith.

Again, a key point of a cult is you're always going to see that singular leader. So what happens is Joseph Smith, he's young, he's learning about Christianity. He doesn't know who to join. So he prays James 1:5, "Whoever of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all." He goes into the woods. He's 14 years old. God the Father and God the Son apparently appear to him. And then he says, "Which one should I join?" And they're like, "Neither. They're all wrong." And what he says is that God then uses him to actually bring about the restoration of the gospel.

Three years after that moment, the angel Moroni appears to him, tells him about some golden plates with hieroglyphics in it, and those are buried in a mountain. He goes and finds it. He uses seer stones to translate the hieroglyphics, and that's how you get the Book of Mormon. In 1829, John the Baptist appears to him and gives him the Aaronic priesthood. And then Peter, James, and John appear to him and give him the Melchizedek priesthood. And then it says this: "As God had done with Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Moses and other prophets, He called Joseph Smith to be a prophet through whom the complete gospel will be restored."

Starts the church, starts LDS, starts Mormonism. They start traveling to all these different places. Eventually, he takes a bunch of wives, about 30 wives. He is sealed with 30 women. What happens is he gets put into jail. A mob storms the jail and kills him. The next president of the LDS moves them to Salt Lake, Utah, where they build Salt Lake. That's why there's such a huge Mormonism population over there.

Now, I tell you all of that because you're just like, "Wait, what did you just say? Seer stones, hieroglyphics, gold stuff. What are you — the angel Moroni? Who is Moroni?" You're looking at that and you're like, this is crazy. Why are we even studying this? This makes no sense. I need you to get the impact, because this isn't just Salt Lake. This is worldwide. Worldwide there are 18 million members. It sounds crazy to us, but 18 million people believe this. Last year they baptized 400,000 people. And get this: outside of the Salt Lake–Provo area in Utah, the next highest Mormon population is Phoenix, Arizona. There are temples in Gilbert, in Phoenix, in Mesa. There's one just announced in Queen Creek. This isn't just some far-off land of people that we don't know how to reach. No, this is our back door.

And they're more devout than you could ever imagine. Regular church attendance: Mormonism 68%, Protestants 48. 73% pray daily. 59% read their Bible outside of church. Let me give you some of their beliefs. 97% say Mormonism is a Christian religion. So you'll say I'm Christian, they'll say I'm Christian too. 91% believe the Book of Mormon was written by ancient prophets and translated by Joseph Smith. 94% say the president of the LDS church is a prophet of God. 95% believe that families can be bound together for eternity. And here's a huge one. 94% believe God the Father and Jesus Christ are separate physical beings — which denies the Trinity, a foundational truth. The gospel doesn't even make sense without that. That's a little background on Mormonism.

Who are Jehovah's Witnesses?

Let me give you some background on Jehovah's Witnesses. And you're going to see that they make some of the common mistakes, which is why we're studying both of them. Jehovah's Witnesses, they claim they're the only true form of Christianity, but they deny the Trinity. They believe that Jesus is a created being. They believe that God's name was Jehovah, which we see that in the Bible, which is why they call themselves Jehovah's Witnesses. They believe that Jesus was created just like the Archangel Michael. And the Holy Spirit is an impersonal force rather than a divine person.

So it was founded by Charles Taze Russell in 1870. He had big problems with the Trinity and hell. So he created a religion that rejects those two things. He started writing in a magazine that got eventually renamed to the Watchtower. And if you go into doctor's offices, you have seen them and you haven't even realized it. It is all over the place. There are over 8 million Jehovah's Witnesses worldwide. And that only includes active people who preach. If you don't preach, you can't be a Jehovah's Witness. So for all of you who are afraid of speaking, apparently you would never qualify — even though it's false. So there we go.

They're best known by their door-to-door visits, their literature distribution, and their use of their own Bible that they have put their own words to. This is not a translation that we would ever receive, called the New World Translation. Let me show you some of the literature that you will often see. You'll see Awake — that's one of their magazines. "Awake: a world in turmoil. How can you cope?" And you're like, that looks interesting. That looks like something I would want to read. "Awake: coping with rising prices." How many of you are like, I need that help? Yeah, you would pick that up. "The Watchtower: an end to war. How is life worth living?" And then you read it, and it shows you how life is worth living. And at the end, they always present their version of the gospel.

Get the impact of this. At its peak, 800,000 books were created per day. 42 million copies per issue. And then when the world moved online, they did too. And they now have the number one most translated website in the world: 1,123 languages. To put that into context, the next highest is Wikipedia with 329 — a quarter. Google Translate, 250. And that challenges me, because they are doing everything they can to translate their false version of the gospel so that people can understand it. And it makes me say, as a Christian, what are we doing? If they are so desperate to get their false version to us, what are we doing to get our true version to others?

Some unique claims. They don't do blood transfusions. They don't celebrate Easter or Resurrection Sunday, because they believe that Jesus said we need to remember His death. They believe only 144,000 will reign with Christ. They believe people don't go to hell — you just stop existing. They believe Jesus became king in heaven in 1914. So when He rose, it didn't quite happen; it happened in 1914. I'm not going to tell you how they got there. You can research that, and praise God for that.

They believe the Trinity is unbiblical, and they struggled with hell. So they said hell is not a place of eternal suffering. The dead are unconscious, so they can't feel pain. God has set death, not torment in fiery hell, as the penalty for sin. And the idea of eternal torment is repugnant to God. That's what they believe.

So that's a bit about Mormonism. And a bit about Jehovah's Witnesses. Two religions. One has temples in Mesa and Gilbert. The other one is knocking on your doors this Saturday. Both call themselves Christian. Both use your vocabulary. They say Jesus. They say the gospel. They say salvation. They say grace. So what do you do? You don't argue about magazines. You take what they believe and you hold it up to the light — which is what we're going to do.

1. What is your final authority?

First question: what is your final authority? Remember, every counterfeit will start here. Because before they can give you a different Jesus and a different salvation, they have to give you a different authority. Because if you read this, there is only one that will lead you to Jesus. So they give you a different authority.

Mormonism has five sources of authority. The living prophet, who they believe can correct scripture. It says this in their doctrine, that the Lord will never permit the president of the LDS church to lead the church astray — which is why they can change their beliefs all the time. So if you're like, "Well, you used to believe," they're like, "Yeah, but you know, we spoke about that and we decided to change that." Ezra Benson said this: the living prophet is more vital than the standard works, which would include the Bible, and more important than any dead prophet. So the living prophet is the most important. Then the Book of Mormon. Then their Doctrine and Covenants. Then the Pearl of Great Price, which is the translations of Joseph Smith and his writings. And then the King James Bible, last. And that Bible is footnoted to make sure that it lines up with all of their beliefs.

Those are their sources of authority. And they would mock us for having the Bible. 2 Nephi 29:6 — this is the Book of Mormon, not scripture — says, "Thou fool, that shall say, a Bible, we have got a Bible, and we need no more Bible." So what they're saying is, because we believe that the Bible is the word of God and we don't need anything else, we're fools.

What do they believe about the gospel? It was lost for 1700 years. So if you're talking to a Mormon, show them Matthew 16:18, which says this — this is Jesus speaking — "And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of hell will not overcome it." What do you mean we lost the gospel for 1700 years? This is in your Bible. So they don't deny the Bible. What they do is they demote it.

Jehovah's Witnesses, what is their source of authority? It's called the New World Translation, which they have changed to match up with their own doctrine. I'm not going to read it, but Charles Taze Russell, he has this quote where he's written a bunch of books, and he says, "If you read my books and you do not read the Bible, you will come into the light." And he says this: "But if you put my books down, even after reading them for 10 years, and read the Bible alone, in two years you will go into darkness." Two years, you will go into darkness. So he says don't even read the Bible. He says all you have to do is read my writings. This is not a Christian religion, even though the Pentagon labeled it as such.

So what do Christians believe? We believe this. Who has the final authority? The Bible, and the Bible alone. The Bible and the Bible alone. 2 Timothy 3:16. "All scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God might be complete, equipped for every good work." Even their translation, the New World Translation, says "completely equipped." So if you're a Jehovah's Witness, if you're talking to them, if their Bible says that you're complete with every good work in the Bible, why do we need your prophet's writings in order not to fall into darkness? It is a contradiction. It is a contradiction in plain sight.

Mormonism, the King James Version, the Bible that they read, says the same thing. So why do we need Joseph Smith's writings 1700 years later if the Bible is complete? You see, what they don't do is subtract the Bible, because that would be unwise and would be obvious. What they do is they add to the Bible, and they say every addition is more important than the Bible. So the additions become the ones holding the pen. That is not the gospel, and that is not Christianity.

So they both fail on the first test. What is the authority that we hold to? Jude 3 says this: the faith was delivered once and for all. Delivered. Past tense. It was delivered. It's already happened. We don't need anything extra. This is complete. It is complete. It is everything that we need. Yes, they both fail there.

2. Who do you say Jesus is?

Which means that now we lead to: what do you say? Who do you say Jesus is? We believe this. Jesus is fully God and fully man. One of three persons of the one true God, uncreated, not a second god, crucified in our place.

The Bible warns that people are going to come and they're going to tell you about a different kind of Jesus. 2 Corinthians 11:3, "But I fear that some of your pure and undivided devotion to Christ will become corrupted, just as Eve was deceived. You happily put up with whatever anyone is telling you, even if they preach a different Jesus than the one that you preached" — we can't tolerate that, we can't put up with that — "or a different kind of spirit than the one that you have received." Both of them will use the word Jesus, but it means different things.

Let me read exactly what Mormonism believes, who they believe Jesus is. And watch this. "Jesus was born to Mary at Bethlehem." Correct. "He lived a sinless life and made a perfect atonement for the sins of all mankind by the shedding of His blood and giving His life on the cross." Okay. "He rose from the dead." Okay. "Thus assuring the eventual resurrection of mankind." Yeah. "Through Jesus's atonement and resurrection, those who repent of their sins and obey God's commands can live eternally with Jesus and the Father." Does that sound right? Watch it. That's how careful we have to be.

We believe that we're resurrected, but we believe that we are resurrected to be judged, and that those who are with God will go to heaven and those who are not, won't. They believe in unconditional salvation — that no matter who you are, you're going to go to some form of heaven. They use the same words, but their definitions are different. Also, watch what is missing. Faith. In their definition of how you become saved, faith is not there. What is present? Obedience as the condition. You have to repent and obey. Works. Laws. Not a gospel at all.

If you keep reading on that web page, it will say that Jesus Christ is the firstborn of the Father in spirit. They believe that Jesus is the firstborn spirit child, secondary to God, under God the Father — our oldest spirit brother, who is just up further the ladder than we are. It is a different Jesus. It is not Jesus at all.

What do they believe about God? They believe that God the Father was once a man and progressed into godhood. I don't know how they get around Genesis 1:1, that says "In the beginning God" — like, four words in, God already was. He didn't progress. So I don't know how we progressed. In the beginning, God — that's in their Bible. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are three distinct gods. They teach that prior to creation there were many planets and many gods. So, polytheism. And how did we appear? A council of gods got together. They used the physical matter that already existed, and they were like, "Okay, kids, you're all going to have to go down in your spirit bodies, be tested and all that good stuff, and then you can somehow get saved and go into one of the three kingdoms." They believe that we have seeds of divinity in us and we can become like God — which is the lie in Genesis 3. It is the lie the serpent believed, that you can become like God. That is how sin came into being. The very thing that they are pushing toward is the thing that caused sin ultimately to come. They use the same word, but it's different.

Jehovah's Witnesses, completely different. They do not believe in the Trinity. They believe that there is one God. Jesus was a created lesser god, and the Holy Spirit is a force. They also believe that Jesus is not equal to the Father. Here's what it says: "We follow the teachings and example of Jesus Christ and honor Him as our Savior and as a son of God. Thus, we are Christians. However, we have learned from the Bible that Jesus is not Almighty God, and that there is no scriptural basis for the doctrine of the Trinity." Who is Jesus? "A powerful spirit who lives in heaven. He was created by Jehovah before anything else. The Bible refers to Jesus as God's begotten son because Jesus was directly created by God." So Jesus wasn't always there and didn't always exist.

And you might be like, that sounds crazy. How is that? Get this. I want to read their version of the Bible. John 1:1 in our version says this: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Let me read their translation — not a translation, not scripture: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god." Lowercase g. A god. That is not the Jesus of the Bible.

What do we believe? We believe in one God. I talked about this last week. One God. Deuteronomy 6:4. In three distinct persons. Plural pronouns. "Let us make mankind in our image." Genesis 1:26. We see a separation in Jesus's baptism. You see God the Father, God the Spirit, you see God the Son. Jesus is distinguished from the Father, John 1:1. The Spirit is distinguished from the Son, John 14:26. The Father is distinguished from the Spirit, Romans 8:26. They are all distinguished, but they are all God. They are one. God the Father is God, 1 Corinthians 8:6. God the Son is God, Titus 2:13. God the Spirit is God, Acts 5:3.

So if you're talking to them, you're like, "What do I say?" Here's what you do to a Jehovah's Witness. John 20:28, Thomas says to Jesus, "My Lord and my God." In their Bible, Thomas calls Jesus Lord and God. Isaiah 43:10, for Mormons that say we can become like gods — "Before Me," this is in the Bible that they read, the King James Version, "Before Me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after Me." Two different Jesuses. One pulls Jesus down into a creature. The other one pulls God down and pulls us up, and ignores Isaiah 43: before Me there is no God, nor shall there be anyone after Me.

3. How are you saved?

Final question is this. How are you saved? And y'all, this is where it gets wild and exhausting and tiring — for Mormonism. For you to be saved, you've got to keep climbing. They believe, to be saved, you need to have faith. You have to repent. You have to be baptized. That is a requirement for salvation into the celestial kingdom. And that's a problem, because you know what? If I died and I wasn't baptized — well, they're like, well, then you can just get baptized by proxy from those who are living. That's why they practice baptism for the dead, because they believe that you can accept God in the afterlife.

They believe that you have to do various works. Straight from the website: "In 1921, the Lord inspired President Heber J. Grant to require all saints to abstain from alcohol, tobacco, coffee, and tea." You all have heard about that, I'm sure. In order to obtain a temple recommend. Here's what's crazy. To get a temple recommend — that's where all their saving ordinances happen. So if you drink coffee, you can't get into the temple. If you can't get into the temple, you can't be part of all the saving ordinances. Therefore, you will never get to the highest level of heaven. Yo, that is crazy. That is crazy.

And then you're like, "Okay, wait. What do they even believe about heaven, y'all?" They have three heavens. It's like an apartment building. The top floor is where God is. It's called the celestial kingdom. And only married Mormons who have gone through all the saving ordinances can get to that top floor — or Christians who have never heard about Mormonism. So I'm sorry, we just ruined all of that for any of us here, because you now know about Mormonism apparently. Those are the only people that can get there. Then they have a second level called the terrestrial glory. That is literally the word. And that's for lukewarm Mormons and for Christians who heard about Mormonism but didn't accept it. So in their theology, this is where we will be. And then they have the telestial glory, which is the bottom floor, still a kingdom of glory, still beautiful. And who goes there is wicked people and those who reject Mormonism after death. And they even believe hell is purgatory in a way — that you go to hell, you pay for the sin because you didn't accept Jesus, and when you suffer long enough, you pay your own price and you get to go to the third level of glory. Y'all, it is a distortion. And 18 million people believe it. Our neighbors. Our city.

Jehovah's Witnesses are no different. You have to have faith in Jesus. You actually have to learn what the Bible really teaches in order to be saved. You have to get baptized as a Jehovah's Witness. You have to do salvation through works. You have to preach publicly. You have to have called God Jehovah at least once. And you need to attend church. And you can keep climbing till the end.

What do we believe? Ephesians 2:8. "For it is by grace" — aren't y'all thankful for the grace of God? — "it is by grace that you have been saved. It is a gift, not of works, lest any man should boast." That is in both of their Bibles. Someone comes to my door, I'm like, "Can I have your Bible? Can I take you to Ephesians 2:8? Can we talk about that?" Neither system will ever be able to say, "It is finished." Mormonism is always about climbing, and the Witnesses are always about enduring. One of them gives you a ladder, and the other one gives you a treadmill.

How do we reach them?

1. Love them

So how do we reach them? First thing is, I need you to love them. I need you to love them. Not argue with them. Love them. Think of Luke 15. Lost coin, lost son, lost sheep. Jesus will do whatever He can to reach people who are far from Him. And that just challenges me. Am I just the person who doesn't open the door? Or am I the person who's like, "Hey, I'll give you 10 minutes if you give me 10." Let's talk about this. You've got to love them.

2. Ask them

Second thing I want you to do is ask them. Use the detector as a tool. Who do you say Jesus is? Who do you believe God is? Who's your final authority?

3. Show them

And then finally, I need you to show them. For Mormonism, when they say the gospel is lost, show them Matthew 16:18, that the gates of Hades will not overcome it. Explain who God is. Explain the gospel respectfully. Share it with grace. They believe, 2 Nephi, that we are saved after all we can do. Have you ever met a person who has done all they can do? No. We believe Ephesians 2, by grace we have been saved, not as a result of our works. You have to share with them that we can't be God. Jeremiah 10:6, "No one is like You, Lord. You are great, and Your name is mighty in power." The goal is not equality with God. That's what got Satan kicked out of heaven. It's not equality with God. It's reconciliation to God.

For a Jehovah's Witness, show them the logic in their own Bible. Talk about grace through faith, not by works. Ephesians 2:8, we talked about that. That's in their Bible. Talk about eternity. Matthew 13:42, it says that they'll be thrown away where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth for those who don't follow God. How do you get around that? Matthew 25:41, it says that those who do not follow God, God will say, "Go away from Me. You have been cursed into the everlasting fire." What does that mean if there is no hell?

And the final thing is talk about Jesus. If you have a Jehovah's Witness knock on your door, here's what I want you to do. John 1:1 in their Bible says this: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god." Okay, so they don't believe Jesus is God. So do this. Everyone, hold up a circle. They believe that Jesus was created by God. So if in the circle is everything that was created, where is God? Outside the circle. Does that make sense? Where is Jesus in the circle according to them? Because He was created by God, and everything created by God is in the circle. That's what they believe. So they translated John 1:1, but they forgot to translate John 1:2, which says this: "This one in the beginning was with God. All things came into existence through Him, and apart from Him not even one thing came into existence." Based on your verse, where can you put Jesus? You can no longer put Him in the circle. So you don't need to argue theology. You don't need to be like, "Okay, where are my notes?" Circle their version of their Bible. We have to reach them, show them, love them, give them the gospel.

Have you met the real Jesus?

A different Jesus. I know there may be some people here today, and maybe you don't even know this Jesus. And if that's you, we want to give you that opportunity. Can I ask everyone to close your eyes, bow your heads?

Let me tell you the gospel. The gospel is that every single one of us fell short of the glory of God. But God sent His Son Jesus to come into this earth. He died on a cross, and He was raised, that we can have life. And the Bible says in Romans that if you declare with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and you believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, that you will be saved. There is nothing you need to do. All you need to do is give your life and trust in Jesus. There is no work that can save you, so that no one can boast, the Bible says.

And if you're here and you've never taken that step to follow Jesus, we're going to pray a prayer, and we're all going to pray for the benefit of those praying for the first time. Just repeat after me. Say: "Dear Jesus, I believe that You're the Son of God and the Savior of the world. I believe You came to this earth. You died on a cross, and You were raised, that I can have life. I make You my Lord. I make You my Savior. In Jesus's name."