From: rpitts@emperor.gatech.edu (Richard Pitts)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Christians are not Christians.
Keywords: Mormon, LDS, Christian
Date: 6 Oct 92 15:00:07 GMT
Organization: CERL-EE, Georgia Institue of Technology

In article <5OCT199214542776@acad3.alaska.edu> ksjwr@acad3.alaska.edu (REDELSS JOHN W) writes:
|So what if the Mormons are making an honest mistake?  Doesn't Jesus love them
|too?  If so, won't he straighten them out bye and bye?  How do we serve Him by
|fighting among ourselves?

Did you know there was another Jesus, another gospel, another Spirit?

Paul tells us in 2 Cor 11:4 of these and in Galatians 1 he tells us that 
if anyone preaches another gosple, let the be accursed.  Paul did take
it lightly.

|In the New Testament the Savior says that to follow him, you have to follow
|whom he has sent.  Well he has sent Joseph Smith.  If we don't follow Joseph
|Smith, we aren't willing to follow the Savior.  If we refuse to follow the
|Savior, then we are not Christian.  Christians are the followers of Jesus
|Christ

Hebrew 1 tells us that God in these last times had sent Jesus His Son, whereas,
before he had sent prophets.  Jesus finished the work (Hebrews 7-10).

|Mormons are the only Christians in the world because only they are following
|the man, Joseph Smith, whom Jesus sent.  If a man who lived in the days of
|Peter, James and John had refused to follow Peter, James or John would he have
|been a true follower of Jesus?  I think not.  

I thought we were to follow Christ and not man.  Paul in his letter to
Timothy tells us that there is ONLY ONE MAN between God and us and that
man is Jesus the Christ, God in human flesh.  

It is not that we are to follow men, but God.  Jesus is the only one
that has gained the victory over death.  His followers told us about 
Him and His work - they say it is finished.

|Do you actually know for a fact that Joseph Smith did NOT speak to the Father
|and the Son?  Do you know for a fact that Joseph Smith was a fraud or a
|lunatic?  What if you're wrong?

Where did Mr. Smith see Jesus?  Did you know that Jesus is in heaven, until
it is time for him to return?  Has anyone seen the Father?  Jesus is the
only part of God we have seen.

|Sure you have the Bible, but so do we.  How can you be certain that you don't
|misunderstand it?  Are you sure you understand it completely?

Is the Bible your only written guide?

|But what if you are wrong?  If you are wrong, you are fighting against the
|Savior.  That's not really a very good idea because you know whose side that
|puts you on, don't you?

What do you think is wrong with 'our approach'?

|In your place I would be nice to Mormons just in case.  The Savior asked us to
|love each other in any case.  And he didn't say we should only love people who
|belong to our own church.

True.  But we are to correct those who name the name of Christ and let 
God take care of those outside.

|Jesus Christ is divine.  He is God.  He is the creator of the heavens and the
|earth.  He ransomed us from our sins when he sweat blood from every pore in the
|Garden of Gesthemene.  He really died on the cross, and three days later he
|raised himself up from the dead, a resurrected, immortal man.  Without him we
|belong to Satan.  With him we can dwell in the presence of God, forever.  This
|is salvation to live with Jesus and the Eternal Father forever.

How do we merit salvation?????  Your words sound good, but how does man 
tap into this?

|Jesus Christ is the center of my faith.  Joseph Smith means nothing to me
|except I believe that Jesus sent him.  The Book of Mormon means nothing to me
|except that it teaches me about Jesus even better than the Bible because it
|hasn't been translated by so many uninspired men.  My Mormon church means
|nothing to me except I believe that Jesus wants me to be a Mormon.

Hasn't the Book of Moron been modified MANY times?

|When I was a Baptist, I believed in Jesus.  But my faith in Jesus has grown
|enormously since I became a Latter-day Saint.  The only reason I became a
|Mormon was because I felt that the Latter-day Saints were preaching Jesus
|better than any of the Protestant denominations.  And in thirty years I have
|not learned of anything in the LDS church to make me feel differently.

Could you explain how the LDS teach Jesus better?


For Christ and His Kingdom,
Richard Pitts
-- 
rpitts@cerl.gatech.edu       |    
Atlanta, GA                --|-- 
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