Does he believe the passage in the Book of Mormon that says if you are not Mormon you are in the church of the devil?
“there are save two churches only; the one is the church of the Lamb of God, and the other is the church of the devil; wherefore, whoso belongeth not to the church of the Lamb of God belongeth to that great church, which is the mother of abominations; and she is the whore of all the earth” (1 Ne. 14:10-11).
This is the very reason Joseph Smith supposedly started Mormonism. According to him, he was met by Jesus and Elohim in the woods and asked them what religion he should join, and they told him none of them, that all Christian religions were corrupt. And to start a new one.
Romney has to believe that as it’s the very reason why Mormonism exists and claims to be the only true religion, restored. Otherwise they can’t claim to be any better or worse.
Now some may say that’s no different than Christianity but I will state clearly ALL other religions, Mormonism included, are different fundamentally from Chrisianity. There really are only two religions in the world, Christianity, and the rest. All the other religions of the world require a person to earn salvation. Only Christianity has a Savior that has earned salvation for you and everyone else, because only He could live a perfect life required by God, to keep all God’s laws, and therefore be perfect and be able to gain Heaven. He gave that life that did not require God to punish it for breaking God’s law, up for sacrifice so that those who would believe in Him could be imputed His perfectness, and therefore be able to stand before God because of what Christ did, not because of anything they did.
Every other religion people “earn” their salvation. None are certain they ever “earn” heaven. They never truly know if they have done enough. They say they hope they have. That is NOT the CERTAIN hope Christians have, because they KNOW Jesus is who He says He is and did what He said He did, because HE AROSE FROM THE GRAVE! He has the power to set His life down, and take it up again. We have certain hope because we know what Jesus did. The apostles did not even know this after Jesus died. They ran away and holed up in a locked chamber room not knowing what was going to happen next, thinking they may be the next people put up on crosses. Jesus appeared to them in that locked room and showed them His wounds. What turns a bunch of scared men into those not afraid to die for their faith in a man that was crucified but they now believe is living? NOT A LIE. BELIEF that it happened. They had 40 days with him after His resurrection. They cite over 500 eyewitnesses alive during the writing of the New Testament books (letters and accounts) that knew Jesus and saw Him alive during these 40 days. People do not martyr themselves for a lie. They will die for the truth though.
The bottom line is you can be in any other religion in the world and try to earn your way into heaven, which you cannot. You cannot make an imperfect, sinful life, perfect and holy, on your own. Breaking a perfect, infinite God’s laws requires an infinite penalty (eternal separation from God). The only way that debt is paid is either YOU pay it, spending eternity separated from God, or you receive the free gift God, who is perfect but also loving, has provided in His Son’s innocent suffering and death FOR YOU and me and everyone, on the cross, paying the penalty for your sins and mine - because the wages of sin (all sin, every sin) is death. God made ONE way for every person, the sacrificial death of His son, the perfect God-man, Jesus Christ.
You can try to earn it or you can recognize God’s already paid your penalty and gratefully receive Him as your Savior and Lord. Those under religions of works suffer heavy burdens and worry because they never know if they’ve done enough. They are right to have this nagging worry, they will discover their nagging worry is correct unless they receive Christ as Savior and Lord.
Does he believe the passage in the Book of Mormon that says if you are not Mormon you are in the church of the devil?Were the following uttered by men of standing in the MORMON Religious Organization®?
Do you stand by these words or do you repudiate them?
(Any MORMONs reading this may comment, too...)
Questions put to Joseph Smith: "'Do you believe the Bible?' [Smith:]'If we do, we are the only people under heaven that does, for there are none of the religious sects of the day that do'. When asked 'Will everybody be damned, but Mormons'? [Smith replied] 'Yes, and a great portion of them, unless they repent, and work righteousness." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 119).
Joseph Smith: "for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible" (from Pearl of Great Price 1:12). "What is it that inspires professors of Christianity generally with a hope of salvation? It is that smooth, sophisticated influence of the devil, by which he deceives the whole world" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.270).
Brigham Young stated this repeatedly: "When the light came to me I saw that all the so-called Christian world was grovelling in darkness" (Journal of Discourses 5:73); "The Christian world, so-called, are heathens as to the knowledge of the salvation of God" (Journal of Discourses 8:171); "With a regard to true theology, a more ignorant people never lived than the present so-called Christian world" (Journal of Discourses 8:199); "And who is there that acknowledges [God's] hand? ...You may wander east, west, north, and south, and you cannot find it in any church or government on the earth, except the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.24); "Should you ask why we differ from other Christians, as they are called, it is simply because they are not Christians as the New Testament defines Christianity" (Journal of Discourses 10:230).
Orson Pratt proclaimed: "Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the 'whore of Babylon' whom the Lord denounces by the mouth of John the Revelator as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. Any person who shall be so corrupt as to receive a holy ordinance of the Gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them, unless they repent" (The Seer, p. 255).
Orson Pratt also said: "This
great apostasy commenced about the close of the first century of the Christian era, and it has been waxing worse and worse from then until now" (
Journal of Discourses , vol.18, p.44) and: "But as there has been no Christian Church on the earth for a great many centuries past, until the present century, the people have lost sight of the pattern that God has given according to which the Christian Church should be established, and they have denominated a great variety of people Christian Churches, because they profess to be ...But there has been a long apostasy, during which the nations have been cursed with apostate churches in great abundance" (Journal of Discourses , 18:172).
President John Taylor stated: "Christianity...is a perfect pack of nonsense...the devil could not invent a better engine to spread his work than the Christianity of the nineteenth century." (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.167); "Where shall we look for the true order or authority of God? It cannot be found in any nation of Christendom." (Journal of Discourses , 10:127).
James Talmage said: "A self-suggesting interpretation of history indicates that there has been a great departure from the way of salvation as laid down by the Savior, a universal apostasy from the Church of Christ". (A Study of the Articles of Faith, p.182).
President Joseph Fielding Smith said: "Doctrines were corrupted, authority lost, and a false order of religion took the place of the gospel of Jesus Christ, just as it had been the case in former dispensations, and the people were left in spiritual darkness." (Doctrines of Salvation, p.266). "For hundreds of years the world was wrapped in a veil of spiritual darkness, until there was not one fundamental truth belonging to the place of salvation ...Joseph Smith declared that in the year 1820 the Lord revealed to him that all the 'Christian' churches were in error, teaching for commandments the doctrines of men" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 3, p.282).
More recent statements by apostle Bruce McConkie are also very clear: "Apostasy was universal...And this darkness still prevails except among those who have come to a knowledge of the restored gospel" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol 3, p.265); "Thus the signs of the times include the prevailing apostate darkness in the sects of Christendom and in the religious world in general" (The Millennial Messiah, p.403); "a perverted Christianity holds sway among the so-called Christians of apostate Christendom" (Mormon Doctrine, p.132); "virtually all the millions of apostate Christendom have abased themselves before the mythical throne of a mythical Christ whom they vainly suppose to be a spirit essence who is incorporeal uncreated, immaterial and three-in-one with the Father and Holy Spirit" (Mormon Doctrine, p.269); "Gnosticism is one of the great pagan philosophies which antedated Christ and the Christian Era and which was later commingled with pure Christianity to form the apostate religion that has prevailed in the world since the early days of that era." (Mormon Doctrine, p.316).
President George Q. Cannon said: "After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, there were only two churches upon the earth. They were known respectively as the Church of the Lamb of God and Babylon. The various organizations which are called churches throughout Christendom, though differing in their creeds and organizations, have one common origin. They all belong to Babylon" (Gospel Truth, p.324).
President Wilford Woodruff stated: "the Gospel of modern Christendom shuts up the Lord, and stops all communication with Him. I want nothing to do with such a Gospel, I would rather prefer the Gospel of the dark ages, so called" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 2, p.196).