Why Seventh-day Adventists should be interested in the Mormons

• Because they outnumber us in North America about 8.5 to 1 (1998 LDS U.S. Membership total was 5,023,158).
• Because we are often misidentified as Mormons.
• Because in your ministry you will have the Mormons visit your church. They will come to you. You will be granted opportunities to interact with them and potentially plant seeds that could lead them to later conversion to Adventism.
• Because they constitute a significant people-group who need the gospel.
• Because they are both a counterfeit of Adventism and the antithesis of Adventism.

Some little-known teachings of the Mormons

• The four LDS Scriptures
• Pre-existence of souls
• Eternal Progression

The Mormon Theodicy

Mormonism, like all attractive errors, comes in a self-consistent package. This interlocking structure provides a counterfeit replacement to fulfil people's structure hunger (the three primary 'hungers' people have are social interaction (interact with people), structure hunger (a explanation and meaning for the way things are), and stimulus hunger (need for stimulation).

Mormonism proposes that matter was always here, that even God did not make it. We originally were brought into existence as immortal spirit beings derived from this matter. In order to be tested and begin the pathway of eternal progression, we voluntarily laid aside our knowledge of our identity and came here to inhabit human bodies. During this time when our immortal spirit is linked with its human body we are being tested, undergoing a probationary period. If we are valiant in this life, we are allowed to progress to godhood, where each male will get his own planet to populate like Adam and Eve. The focus on Mormonism is on the Father to the minimalization of the Son and the Holy Spirit.

In regards to the church, the LDS teaches that it was originally founded in Adam's day, experienced many periods of apostasy, TOTALLY apostasized after the death of the early apostles, and is restored through Joseph Smith. Young Joseph Smith asked God which church he should join, and God told him, none, for none were legitimate. Through Joseph Smith, the gospel is restored, the true priesthood, and the only true church. Thus, all other churches are marked as illegitimate. The LDS church believes that its Presidents continue to function as living prophets, linked to heaven; and the sayings of these contemporary prophets sometimes receive more attention as those of Joseph Smith.

The LDS epistemology is highly subjective, we know truth by the witness of the spirit, or the burning of the bosom.

In this package,

2 Nephi 2:19-25
"And after Adam and Eve had partaken of the forbidden fruit they were driven out of the garden of Eden, to till the earth. And they have brought forth children; yea, even the family of all the earth. And the days of the children of men were prolonged, according to the will of God, that they might repent while in the flesh; wherefore their state became a state of probation, and their time was lengthened. According to the commandments which the Lord God gave unto the children of men. For he gave commandment that all men must repent; for he shewed unto all men that they were lost, because of the transgression of their parents. And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end. And they would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin. But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things. Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy."

2 Nephi 9:22
"And he suffereth this that the resurrection might pass upon all men, that all might stand before him at the great and judgment day."

Those who gain only individual salvation in the terrestrial or telestial kingdom will in eternity be ministering servants to more worthy persons:

Doctrine and Covenants 132:15-17
" Therefore, if a man marry him a wife in the world, and he marry her not by me nor by my word, and he covenant with her so long as he is in the world and she with him, their covenant and marriage are not of force when they are dead, and when they are out of the world; therefore, they are not bound by any law when they are out of the world. Therefore, when they are out of the world they neither marry nor are given in marriage; but are appointed [become] angels in heaven, which angels are ministering servants, to minsiter for those who are worthy of a far more, and an exceeding, and an eternal weight of glory."

Full Salvation = Exaltation.

Doctrine and Covenants 131:1-4
"In the celestial glory there are three heavens or degrees; and in order to obtain the highest, a man must enter into this order of the priesthood [meaning the new and everlasting covenant of marriage]; And if he does not, he cannot obtain it. He may enter into the other, but that is the end of his kingdom; he cannot have an increase."

But if they do enter in,

Doctrine and Covenants 132:20
"Then shall they be gods, because they have no end; therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting, because they continue; then shall they be above all, because all things are subject unto them. Then shall they be gods, because they have all power, and the angels are subject unto them."

Doctrine and Covenants 93:29
"Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be."

Doctrine and Covenants 138:56-57
"Even before they were born, they, with many others, received their first lessons in the world of spirits and were prepared to come forth in due time of the Lord to labor in his vineyard for the salvation of the souls of men. I beheld that the faithful elders of this dispensation, when they depart from mortal life, continue their labors in the preaching of the gospel of repentance and redemption, through the sacrifice of the Only Begotten Son of God, among those who are in darkness and under the bondage of sin in the great world of the spirits of the dead."

	Conventional Christianity	Neo-Adventism	Neo- Mormonism	Historic Mormonism	Authentic Adventism
God	All-powerful	All-powerful	All-powerful	Is progressing	All-powerful
Man	Depraved, non-perfectible	Depraved, non-perfectible	Depraved, non-perfectible	Not Depraved, is perfectable	Tendency to evil, yet perfectible
Creation	Ex Nihilo	Ex Nihilo	Matter was pre-existent	Matter was pre-existent	Ex Nihilo
Fall	Bad, but little additional explanation	Unnecessary, bad	Necessary, good	Necessary, good	Unnecessary, bad
Sin	State of being	State of being	State of being	Act	Act
Salvation	Once saved, always saved	Almost once saved, always saved	Saved by merit	Saved by merit	Saved by grace, interacting with non-merit-bearing conditions
Life	Fatalistic	Almost fatalistic	Probationary	Probationary	Probationary
Grace	Radically disassociated with works	Radically disassociated with works	Poorly defined	Poorly defined	Mercy plus power to obey
Jesus	Substitute	Substitute	Example	Example	Example
Mortality / Immortality	Man is immortal	Conditional immortality	Man is immortal	Man is immortal	Conditional immortality
Et. torment	Yes	No	No	No	No
Pre-existence	No	No	Yes	Yes	No
Ultimate spiritual authority	Bible interpreted through western Christianity	Bible interpreted through western Christianity	Priesthood of the LDS church and personal feeling	Priesthood of the LDS church and personal feeling	Bible, with Spirit of Prophecy writings secondary

Some exploitable ideas

• The LDS system of priesthood is completely bizarre, in contrast with our priesthood of all believers and Christ's high priesthood in the heavenly sanctuary.
• While LDS says Christianity completely apostasized after the death of the apostles, the immortal soul teaching was fused with Christianity by blending with pagan Greek culture in the fourth century A.D. This is a core element of the LDS belief structure.
• The LDS theodicy falls to pieces without the addition of extra-biblical Scriptures (Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price, Doctrines and Covenants), while SDA teaching is completely explainable by use of the Bible without recourse to external sources.
• Truth must be presented before wiping away the error, because psychologically, the removal of the error first would leave nothing to cling to.

Book of Mormon troubles are vast.

One example: in BOM 3 Nephi 25:2 Joseph Smith translated Malachi 4:2's "Sun of righteousness," (which would be shemesh tsadique), as "Son of Righteousness," which in the original Hebrew would have had to be ben tsadique.

BOM teaches seventh-day Sabbath, as does Doctrines and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price. Thus, the LDs individual must live with a direct contradiction between their accepted "scriptures" and the teaching of their church.

Although Adventists and Mormons both

• Believe in contemporary prophecy
• Have a health message
• Share several other meaningful similarities

Mormons are post-millenialists, building their kingdom at present upon the earth, to hand-off the Christ at the close of this period of time. Adventists are strongly pre-millenial, and see the kingdom of God as being not of this world. Their approach to the Bible is altogether different than the LDS, as in many other things. The LDS are a strikingly unusual kind of counterfeit, blending a very literalist brand of thinking with a very "liberal" approach to Scriptures. Superficially they may appear to look like us, but operationally they function as the embodiment of an antithesis to Adventism. In many respects, they are our exact opposite. To work with Mormons is to cross over into a worldview that is altogether alien to most SDAs. It is hoped that this document, rather than making you throw up your hands in hopelessness will encourage you to think vigorously about how we could appeal to Mormons from within their own frame of reference, connect, and lead them out of that and into our own Bible-based frame of reference.

-Let us keep in mind that ex-mormons will have renounced a false-prophet in the person of Joseph Smith. This has significant implications for their acceptance of Ellen G. White.

-Also, that we work among not only the vigorous Mormon, but also that there are many ex-Mormons that we will encounter, and whom, if we approach thoughtfully can be a fruitful field for Seventh-day Adventists to evangelize.

End