"And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." (read Matthew 16:13-18)
Regardless of how you want to interpret the word 'rock' in verse eighteen the Son of God said that the very gates of hell would not prevail against the Church that He would establish. Was the Son of God wrong? Did He make a bad judgment call? Was He mistaken?
Mormonism teaches that the Church which Christ built was destroyed. They teach that the twelve apostles had authority, which they had to confer upon others in order for the Church to continue, and that because the apostles were all killed before that authority could be transferred, the Church fell. They also claim that this same authority was restored in the early 1800's, through the founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith.
In the New Testament, we find that there were Christians in local churches in many cities, and Jesus said that even the gates of Hell would not take His Church under. Was Jesus wrong?
MORMONISM ANSWERS WITH A RESOUNDING 'YES'. Well, that's a PUZZLE to me.
In order to believe that Christ's Church needed to be restored and that it was restored in the 1800's, you have to accept the idea that the Son of God was in error when He said that the gates of hell would not prevail against His Church. You would have to believe that the Son of God just didn't understand Satan well enough to know the power of the adversary. Are you ready and willing to make that claim? Are you going to accept that uninformed view of His omnipotence and omniscience?
3rd Nephi 28:9 (Page 461) says that three Nephite apostles were allowed to stay on earth and bring souls to Christ until He would return in His second advent. (The heading of Moroni 2 (Page 518) says that they were apostles.) Mormonism teaches that they are still here today, the day you are reading this.
Didn't those apostles have authority to keep the Church going? The apostles of the Mormon Church today have that authority. If not, why did they stay on earth? Mormonism teaches that bringing souls to Christ means bringing souls into His Church. If His Church was lost, how did these three apostles ever bring any souls to Christ? If it wasn't lost, why does Mormonism claim that it had to be restored? This is a PUZZLE to me.
God is not the author of confusion. He does not write contradictory verbiage. The Book of Mormon was not prepared nor produced by Him. It was prepared by someone trying to generate a new book that would look like the Bible. Mark Hoffman would fit right in with the authors of the Book of Mormon.
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2 comments:
Thank you so much for all your work. I so wish that I was able to present these problems and arguments to my family. It's not possible. At the slightest hint of any discussion of facts, I am told to quit being disrespectful. Then I am subjected to the bearing of the testimony once again. It's a crazy making religion Mormonism.
Family is the most difficult area. My sister in law always says that I'm 'bashing' her church whenever I try to point anything out. That's just her way of dealing with me I guess. When I was still LDS, my family used to express many of the same views as I did, but once I left, no more of that.
Thanks for your comment.
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