Its been a fantastic few days of yet more touring around and having some cool conversations with Mormons from varying backgrounds.
Yesterday we visited Brigham Young University which is a University in Provo Utah which has around 32.000 students which are 95% plus Mormon.
Some Byu students playing Basketball, great Sport!!
Now the evening was particularly interesting, on the night a guy was there at the Manti Pageant with a banner saying that everything Brigham Young said was true see below.
This guy is called Jered and is a part of the F-LDS church, which is the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saint Church which is a large Mormon offshoot group that practices polygamy. They state that the “Revelation” from Wilfred Woodruff stating that Polygamy should cease in the church was wrong and they broke off and carried on. So Jered was there to share that he stood fully by all that Brigham Young said, this included the teaching that Adam was God the Father, that God the Father sexually impregnated Mary. I had the chance to share with Him the biblical gospel of salvation by faith in Christ which he certainly did not agree with. I also pointed out from what he was saying the God He believed in was a sinner and an adulterer if He was saying that God committed the sin of Adam and had sex with Mary.
For Mormons reading this and Christians please dont think I am saying that the LDS church of today believes these things, however these beliefs are the heritage of the LDS church, as they are stated by one of their key founding prophets Brigham Young.
Please pray for Jered, we had a good conversation but it was not long before he did not want to speak to me anymore, He certainly heard the gospel from me and others so please pray as I will be that it challenges Him to consider the God He believes in compared to the God of the bible.
As well as this we had a great night giving out flyers and speaking to other people, a great highlight of the night was seeing Aaron Shafovaloff preaching to anyone that would listen, see below.
Among many things Aaron was preaching about whether it is right for LDS people who believe that one day they will be Gods to accept worship from their spirit Children. The thinking behind this comes from the LDS teaching that God was once a man and so by implication must have had a God, however why in the bible does God seek worship for Himself so much rather than point us to His God who must be greater. This logic goes on to any LDS members today who hope to one day be a God. Do you think that it is right that you would accept worship from your spirit children knowing that the God that you followed is so much greater than you? Please think about that and comment.
Aaron is a part of Mormonism Research Ministry and posts on the Mormon Coffee Blog, both I would heavily recommend.
On a humorous note Aaron said that if you ever become gods and one of your spirit children start to worship you “Spank them”.
So there you go more soon.
Oh also Joseph Smith stated that God the Father has a Father in the sermon on the grove, here is the quote
If Abraham reasoned thus — If Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and John discovered that God the Father of Jesus Christ had a Father, you may suppose that He had a Father also. Where was there ever a son without a father? And where was there ever a father without first being a son? Whenever did a tree or anything spring into existence without a progenitor? And everything comes in this way. Paul says that which is earthly is in the likeness of that which is heavenly, Hence if Jesus had a Father, can we not believe that He had a Father also? I despise the idea of being scared to death at such a doctrine, for the Bible is full of it.
you can find this on BYUs website at http://emp.byui.edu/jexj/courses/sermon_in_the_grove.htm