9:15am “Modern Service” Scott Lake Baptist Church (Lakeland FL)
“Jesus is better than… Angels”
Hebrews 1:4-13
The Gospel:
• Heaven is by grace, a free gift (Eph 2:8)
• Man is sinful, separated from God, and can’t save himself (Rom 3:23; 6:23)
• God is loving and wants to save us (2Peter 3:9) but He is absolutely Just (Rom 2:5-6; 3:25-26)
• Jesus is the only way, through his sacrifice on the cross for your sins (Acts 4:12; 1Timothy 2:5-6)
• By faith we accept Jesus’s free gift of salvation (Rom.3:28; Gal. 2:16; John 3:16)
The Mormon Gospel: Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Receiving the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands, Morality, Loyalty, Tithing, Words of Wisdom, Duty, and Celestial Marriage (Articles of Faith)
1. Jesus is not just a SERVANT, but a Son (vv.1-6)
2. Jesus is not just good, He is GOD (vv.7-9)
3. Jesus is not just exalted, He is ETERNAL (vv.10-13)
BONUS: Jesus is better than Joseph Smith
The Latter Day Saints (LDS) vs. Christianity and the Bible (χ)
LDS: “God the father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s” D&C 130:22
χ: Jesus is the “image of invisible God” Col 1:15
LDS: Jesus was married at Cana of Galilee (Orson Hyde & Orson Pratt, original members of the “Quorum of the Twelve Apostles” 1835)
χ: No marriage mentioned
LDS: Jesus was not Begotten of the Holy Ghost
χ: Conceived by the Holy Spirit (Matt 1:18; Luke 1:35)
LDS: You must work to earn salvation (Doctrines of Salvation Vol. 3)
χ: Salvation is a free gift, not works (Eph 2:8-9)
LDS: The church was apostate and restored by Joseph Smith Jr. on April 6, 1830 In New York
LDS: “No man who resists the testimony of Joseph Smith can enter the Kingdom of God (Doctrines of Salvation, Vol. 1)
LDS: “We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe The Book of Mormon to be the word of God” Articles of Faith #8
“I will be to this generation a second Mohammed, who’s motto in treating for peace was ‘the Alcoran (Quran) or the sword’ so shall it eventually be with us ‘J. Smith or the Sword’” (Joseph Smith, Missouri 1838)
1830, 24-yr old Joseph Smith claims the angel Moroni told him where to dig up golden plates that the angel had buried in AD400 in New York
The language on the plates was what Smith called “Reformed Egyptian” which he was given the miraculous ability to translate
Smith said it was the story of the biological descendants of OT Israel who lived in North America from 600BC–AD400
This is what is now called “The Book of Mormon,” their scripture which is claimed to be the very word of God.
Today there are over 10-million Mormons
In the Pearl of Great price is a book called “The Book of Abraham”
1835 (5-yrs after the golden plate translation) Joseph Smith purchased some mummies and papyri.
Smith said it was the SAME LANGUAGE as the golden plates “Reformed Egyptian” and he could translate them in the exact same way as he did the golden plates.
Papyri were lost after Joseph Smith’s death 1844
Just 20-yrs prior, the Rosetta Stone was translated (1822)
The Rosetta Stone included Greek, Demotic Egyptian & Hieroglyphics
What Smith called “Reformed Egyptian” were actually Hieroglyphics
1967 the original “Book of Abraham” Papyri were discovered in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, and returned to the LDS Church
John Wilson, Klaus Baer (Univ. of Chicago Egyptology) and Richard Parker (Brown Univ., Egyptology) translated the text of the papyri
All 3 agree, not a single word match Joseph Smith translation, it’s not even the same topic
So, Joseph Smith was not able to translate “Reformed Egyptian”
This means the words of the Book of Mormon can’t be considered reliable… even if there were golden plates.
Not a single thing in the Book of Mormon can be corroborated by history/archeology
[It appears that the Book of Mormon] had no place in the New World whatsoever . . . [It] just doesn’t seem to fit anything . . . in anthropology [or] history . . . . It seems misplaced. Ray Metheny, Anthropology BYU
What I would say to you is there is no archeological proof of the Book of Mormon. You can look all you want. And there’s been a lot of speculation about it. There’ve been books written by Mormon scholars saying that “this event took place here” or “this event took place here.” But that’s entirely speculative. There is absolutely no archeological evidence that you can tie directly to events that took place. David Johnson, Anthropology BYU
Please don’t trust the Book of Mormon…
