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RaisingCain said, “...for a person who stays in that situation, it is extraordinarily doubtful that they are actually saved.”

I thank God in Heaven every day that it is His Son Jesus Christ who will judge me, and not any imperfect mortal beset with judgemental attitudes like yours.

Raising Cain, I have been LDS for over 42 years. I was raised a Southern Baptist, but my Dad and I joined the LDS church in 1970. I have been in all sorts of psitions within the church in that time, from a missionary to a Sunday School teacher, to a members of bishoprics, etc.

Jesus Christ, miraculously (through the power of the Holy Spirit) born of the Virgin Mary, is my Savior and author of my Salvation. His atonement and redemption in the Garden and on the Cross have saved me, and it is that alone that has saved me. This is the same Christ, written of in the Holy Bible, which I accept as God’s word and His scripture, who was born in Bethlehem, raised by the caprenter, Joseph in Nazareth. He taught in the Temple when young, He grew up and taught His gospel, performed great miralces, healing the sick, feeding the multitudes, raising the dead. He chose His disciples. He hismelf said He was the Christ and the Son of Almighty God. He was unjustly tried by the Jews and the Romans, and was crucified according to Biblical prophesy for the sins of mankind and rose the third day. He will return to this Earth and reign in honor and glory through a glorious Millennium. I look forward to the day of His return.

As I said, I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. What many call a Mormon. We do have different beliefs about the Godhead. We believe in three, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. We believe they are seperate and distinct and turn to the Bible itself of that interpretation. Christ indicated indeed that He and the Father are one, but in the great intercessory praye in Johnr, he explained exactly what that meant when he prayed to the Father and asked that His discplies might be one, even as He and the Father were one. He prayed to the Father...not to himself. He said He came to do the will of His Father, not His own will. His Father’s voice was heard at His baptism and on the mount...separate from His own. The martyr Stephen saw Christ sitting individually next to the Father.

We also believe that we are saved through faith and grace. Our own actions are not sufficient to save us...but we do believe that Christ indicated, very clearly in the Bible that there were certain things that we, as His disciples should do...necessary as a part of our salvation. He said if we love Him, we will keep His commandments...and His apostles taught (notably John) that if we did not keep His commandments, His love was not in us. He sent His disciples forth to baptise and indicated that they who believed and were baptised would be saved, and they who did not would not. These are all things that various denominations interpret differently and have differences over...and that is fine.

We believe, as Paul taught, that the Church of Christ is made up of Apostles, and Prohets, evangelists, bishops, etc. We believe that His Church was restored to the earth...not for “Mormons” but for all mankind and we go about teaching people of it. We believe that all mankind, whenever and wherever they have lived throughout history will be brought to a knowledge of Christ in this life, or before the judgement in the spirit world, so they can either accept or deny His salvation. We believe Christ himself set up this great work on the other side after He was cruicified and before he was resurrected when he “taught the spirits in prison,” according to Biblical verse in Peter.

We do not worship Jospeh Smith or set him up equal in any instance to Jesus Christ. We believe Christ used Him to perform a mission and that mission was the restoration of Christ’s church, also as prophesied in the Bible, with Prophets and Aposles and all that Paul spoke of. Do others believe the time for that is past? Yes. And that is fine as a part of their faith. We also believe in the Book of Mormon, which itself clearly states that it is a second witness of Christ and goes along with the Holy Bible (which we also believe in as Holy Scripture) to witness of Him. It does not replace the Bible...it is not “another Bible,” we believe it is a witness of Christ from ancient America. Do others believe we do not need this witness? Yes...and that too is fine according to the dictates of their faith. Joseph Smith ultimately sealed his mission, despite whatever faults he had...and he had them for he was a human and imperfect...with his own blood.

We believe that when Christ said, in Matthew to “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect”, that he meant it and that our ultimate purpose, through the salvation of Jesus Christ is to do so. But that would be in the far hereafter. We believe what Paul said, in Romans when he said, “We are the Children of God, and if children, then heirs, and joint heirs with Christ if so be that we suffer with Him, that we might also be glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.”

I witness, in all humilty, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind. He is my personal Savior and the only one to whom I look for salvation. That is a true and sincere statement. It is He who will judge me. By most all Chrsitian standards, that statement of acceptance of Jesus Christ means to most that I am saved. The Bible teaches that it is only through the power of the Holy Ghost that I can make such a witness...and I so witness now.

Hope that helps in your understanding...and coming directly from a long-time, card-carrying member of the the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I will not argue about it or contend...just leave it with you in the hopes the thread can get back to its purpose regarding Israel and our support for it.

AMERICA AT THE CROSSROADS OF HISTORY
http://www.jeffhead.com/crossroads.htm

Q:
Are Mormons generally regarded as Christians, and how do their beliefs differ from those of the
Missouri Synod?

A: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, together with the vast majority of Christian denominations in the United States, does not regard the Mormon church as a Christian church. That is because the official writings of Mormonism deny fundamental teachings of orthodox Christianity. For example, the Nicene Creed confesses the clear biblical truth that Jesus Christ, the second Person of the Trinity, is "of one substance with the Father." This central article of the Christian faith is expressly rejected by Mormon teaching- thus undermining the very heart of the scriptural Gospel itself. In a chapter titled "Jesus Christ, the Son of God: Are Mormons Christian?" the president of Brigham Young University (Rex Lee, What Do

Mormons Believe? [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1992] summarizes Mormon teaching by stating that the three persons of the Trinity are "not... one being" (21), but are "separate individuals." In addition, the Father is regarded as having a body "of flesh and bone" (22). Such teaching is contrary to the Holy Scriptures, destructive to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and indicative of the fact that Mormon teaching is not Christian. For more information about beliefs of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints read this

document prepared by the Commission on Theology and Church Relations.

www.lcms.org/Document.fdoc?src=lcm&id=581

NO SALE, Wolf.

“I thank God in Heaven every day that it is His Son Jesus Christ who will judge me, and not any imperfect mortal beset with judgemental attitudes like yours.”

The entire premise of the LDS is that the entirety of orthodox Christianity, from the Catholics to the Protestants, were utterly corrupt from day one and are the whore of babylon, which I quoted some of your founders saying earlier in the thread. Without this fundamental logic Mormonism has no reason to exist. IOW, Mormonism has placed itself in judgment of all Christianity, though you’d absurdly turn it around on me when I point out that Mormons reject historical Christianity in order to embrace the words of a known con-man, a man who commits polyandry, and who, in the case of the Book of Abraham, “translated” standard Egyptian burial rites into a book about Abraham, Newtonian Cosmology and planet Kolob. It is an absurd fraud that exists only through a blatant disregard for all facts and reality, and yet you would claim that you are “saved” when you do not even believe there is a hell to be saved from? When you believe that there are multiple levels of heaven, and that, as a Mormon, you will ascend to the Celestial Heaven to become a god, with Smith standing on the right hand of God permitting you access?

I, on the other hand, can stand on this:

Gal 1:8-9 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. (9) As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.

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“His atonement and redemption in the Garden and on the Cross have saved me”

The word “saved” in Mormon thought can have 6 different meanings, none of which are the Biblical meaning. For example, “ALL” mortals are considered saved from the permanence of death by the works of Christ, (which do not include anything that happened in the garden FYI). However, this is not sufficient to get you out of the lower levels of heaven, or from outer darkness if you were really bad.

What the LDS requires is Baptism “by one with authority” (The LDS) and works and service, including ritual handshakes, baptism of the dead, and performing what you are “called” (literally, they’ll call you up) to do. This is conditional, and your worthiness can be lost.

The scripture does not teach this, nor does it even hint at it.

Joh_8:24 I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.

You do abuse us when you use the language incorrectly without defining it, when you know that Mormonism uses Christian lingo with vastly different definitions.

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“We do not worship Jospeh Smith or set him up equal in any instance to Jesus Christ.”

Brigham Young, second Prophet of the LDS:

“...and he that confesseth not that Jesus has come in the flesh and sent Joseph Smith with the fullness of the Gospel to this generation, is not of God, but is Antichrist,” (Journal of Discourses, vol. 9, p. 312).

“Joseph Smith holds the keys of this last dispensation, and is now engaged behind the vail in the great work of the last days. I can tell our beloved brother Christians who have slain the Prophets and butchered and otherwise caused the death of thousands of Latter-day Saints, the priests who have thanked God in their prayers and thanksgiving from the pulpit that we have been plundered, driven, and slain, and the deacons under the pulpit, and their brethren and sisters in their closets, who have thanked God, thinking that the Latter-day Saints were wasted away, something that no doubt will mortify them—something that, to say the least, is a matter of deep regret to them—namely, that no man or woman in this dispensation will ever enter into the celestial kingdom of God without the consent of Joseph Smith. From the day that the Priesthood was taken from the earth to the winding-up scene of all things, every man and woman must have the certificate of Joseph Smith, junior, as a passport to their entrance into the mansion where God and Christ are—I with you and you with me. I cannot go there without his consent. He holds the keys of that kingdom for the last dispensation—the keys to rule in the spirit-world; and he rules there triumphantly, for he gained full power and a glorious victory over the power of Satan while he was yet in the flesh, and was a martyr to his religion and to the name of Christ, which gives him a most perfect victory in the spirit-world. He reigns there as supreme a being in his sphere, capacity, and calling, as God does in heaven. Many will exclaim—”Oh, that is very disagreeable! It is preposterous! We cannot bear the thought!” But it is true”(Journal of Discourses, vol. 7, p. 289).