Ep 416 ｜ Once Saved, Always Saved？ ｜ Q&A
Episode Stats
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Summary
Once saved, always saved? Is this biblical? What does scripture say about this? Is it a deal breaker? What are the differences between Mormonism and Christianity when it comes to the concept of Once Saved, Always Saved?
Transcript
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Hey guys, welcome to Relatable, another maternity Q&A episode.
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Today we'll be talking about once saved, always saved.
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We'll also be talking about some doctrinal theological differences in Mormonism and Christianity.
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And that is something that you guys have been asking me about a lot.
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I know, very hot topic, controversial topic, but we're just going to dive into it just a
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little bit and then I'll answer a couple more of your questions if we've got time.
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Well, first question someone asked me, which I just thought was crazy because I've been
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Someone asked me, fig newtons or strawberry newtons?
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Do I think that that, do I think which one is better?
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That is, I very rarely eat fig newtons, but recently I have.
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So I'm like, how does this person on Instagram who asked me this question know that?
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I forget which brand it is that we got from Whole Foods, but it's really good.
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And it's like a really good sweet to eat if you don't want to eat, you know, like full
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But also if I want something a little bit different, like a fig newton, then I really
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So very random that you asked me that and very random that you seemingly know that I
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But yeah, strawberry flavor is really, really good.
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You can probably, you know, search for it at Whole Foods if you're looking next time
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Okay, now a much more substantive question and answer.
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So let me start by saying that there are sincere Bible-believing Christians who we will see each
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other in heaven who do not believe in once saved, always saved.
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But there are many Christians that I respect, theologians that I respect who know a lot
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about the Bible and love the Lord with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength who do
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So this is one of those theological differences that we don't see, most people don't see as
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primary, but see rather as kind of secondary or tertiary.
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Some people might say, no, that is a misunderstanding of the gospel.
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That's a misunderstanding of salvation in general.
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I don't think that's a denial of the gospel in any way to say that you can, well, it's
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But I don't think it's a denial of the gospel to say that once saved, always saved is not
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biblical because I know a lot of sincere Christians who do believe that and they have the scripture
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I just disagree with their interpretation of that scripture.
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But I could see how someone would say, well, actually, that's just a misunderstanding, not
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just of salvation, but of Jesus Christ in general and how he saved us.
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And so maybe some people argue that that actually is a fundamental denial of the gospel.
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I think there are a lot of in good faith Christians and faithful Christians who disagree on this
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However, I see the most support in scripture for the idea that, yes, once you are truly
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Romans 8, I think, is probably the strongest case to make for this.
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And those he predestined, God predestined, he also called.
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The chapter goes on to say that nothing can separate us from the love of God.
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That word elect is used several times in the New Testament, referring to everyone who is
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Ephesians 1, 4 through 5 and verse 11 speak to this concept as well.
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Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless
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In love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the
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In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of
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him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.
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So God chooses through his divine will and sovereignty whom will be saved.
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I understand a lot of people are very, um, they don't like that.
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They, they don't like that, uh, assertion that God actually does the choosing, but scripture
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Now that doesn't mean that there is no human responsibility.
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There's this idea, this theological idea called concurrence, where, uh, we believe that simultaneously
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God holds men accountable for their real decisions, their real consequences to your actions.
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And God is absolutely just in allowing those consequences, both temporal and eternal to play
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out, even as he is solely and wholly in charge of absolutely everything.
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As Job 42, two says, his will, there's, there's nothing that can thwart his will.
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Uh, Matthew 10 says, not even a sparrow falls out of the sky apart from your father's will.
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And so if not even a sparrow, which is sold for two or sold for a penny falls from the sky
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apart from your father's will, then surely salvation is not outside of the father's will.
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Now, if you're asking, whoa, whoa, whoa, that's unfair.
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A lot of people also thought that, um, in Rome, apparently when Paul wrote to the Romans,
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for example, in Romans nine, he talks about this, that this is a very difficult concept
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to believe that God is choosing who he is going to show mercy to.
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And God is choosing who he is, who he is not going to show mercy to.
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And yet in that chapter, I would say Romans nine through 11, basically the conclusion is,
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And if God is omnipotent, if God is, which means all powerful, if he is omniscient, that
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means he is all knowing and he is all just, and he is all good, uh, then that means that
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And he is not unjust, um, to choose some and not others.
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And, uh, there's really just no escaping that biblically.
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I wish there were, because it's a very difficult concept for me to wrap my mind around.
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I've got a, I know I've got a lot of friends who are not Calvinist.
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I've got a lot of friends who, um, do not believe that, who are faithful, sincere, wonderful
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And so I know there are other doctrinal positions when it comes to that, but talking about that
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is actually very important to answering this question of once saved, always saved, because
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if God is in charge of our salvation, which I think also Ephesians two makes very clear
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that it is not our own doing, that we are saved by grace through faith, that it is a
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gift, that it has nothing to do, uh, with our own efforts.
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Um, if that is true, if God is solely responsible for our salvation and even the repentance that
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we do, even the turning to him that we do is inspired by his Holy spirit is pushed by him.
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And then it's very hard to make the case that we can lose that salvation, that we had nothing
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If that makes sense, if God gets all of the glory and all of the credit for our salvation,
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if all we're contributing to our salvation is, as the saying goes, the sin that makes it
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necessary, then we are secure because we can't lose something that we, uh, that we did not
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obtain through our own efforts in the first place.
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If God secured it, he is, he doesn't make mistakes.
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He doesn't say, whoops, that was an accident saved ya, but, um, sorry, you disappointed me.
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If he knows everything and he's in charge of everything and he has chosen us in him, as
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Ephesians one says before the foundation of the world, uh, that we can rest in the assurance
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that that salvation is secure, that that salvation is sure.
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Now I've done a whole episode, I'll link to it in the description called predestination.
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Um, and so I've done full episodes on those people ask me about that a lot, but I've talked
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about these subjects very thoroughly in the past.
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And so I'll make sure to link to those past episodes in the description, uh, to this podcast.
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But if, again, if God is in charge of our salvation, which I think, uh, the Bible is
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very clear on that he chose us in him before we even did anything again, Romans nine also
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So I would read those passages before you come at me with your anger.
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A lot of people get very angry when I talked about predestination, which I understand I
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The first time I learned about it in sixth grade, I was very angry about it.
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I also said that's unfair, um, but there are plenty of things that the human mind thinks
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is unfair that are actually just according to God who created justice and who created
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Really the fair thing would be for all of us to be separated from God and under his wrath
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The unfair thing, the gracious thing is that he saves any of us at all.
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A lot of people ask me when they're hearing about this, okay, well, how do I know that
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It's, it stresses me out to think about the election and choosing and thinking all of,
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and thinking about, you know, God calling us his chosen ones, which he absolutely does.
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Well, in the same way that you knew before you even thought about this concept of predestination
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and choosing a Galatians five talks about the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience,
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kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
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Um, we are bearing fruit of repentance in our lives.
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The conviction that you feel, um, uh, about sin is evidence of the Holy spirit in your life.
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Your love of God, your compelling that you feel to love other people.
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Any desire that you have to follow him is not something that you can take credit for, but
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it is actually a working of the Holy spirit in your life is the book of Philippians says
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we are to work our salvation out with fear and trembling.
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And that sounds like it's our, our responsibility, but the verse follows up and says, it is God
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who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
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So this working of justification and sanctification, God gets to take credit for all of it.
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And I think our human propensity is to say, well, it's actually more comfortable for me.
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If I feel like I have some control over this, I have some control over my salvation, but
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If I think that I have to work to maintain my salvation, I am somewhat in charge of it.
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I have some authority over my eternal destination.
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But if I know that God has promised that he's going to catch me, that my salvation is
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secure, not because of anything I bring to the table, but because of what he has done.
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Like if I see the evidence, not perfectly, of course, but if I see the evidence of the
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Holy Spirit in my life, hopefully increasingly over, over time, then I, I can trust that God
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has saved me and that I don't get to take any credit for that.
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And yes, and amen, I don't want to bear the responsibility for that, because if that's
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the case, I'm going to mess it up over and over again.
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But the God who doesn't mess up promises that he has me, that there's going to be nothing
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Um, that there's, I, I can't, uh, I can't mess it up.
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I can't, uh, somehow step out of his good graces because his good graces are not applied
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to me again, because of what I have done, but because of what Christ has done on my behalf
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and because Christ is perfect and he has promised to stand in intercession for me.
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First John two through 18 says, children, it is the last hour.
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And as you have heard that the antichrist is coming.
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So that just means people who are against Christ, false teachers, people who are not believers.
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They went out from us, but they were not of us for if they had been of us, they would have
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continued with us, but they went out that it might become plain that they all are not
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of us, but you have been anointed by the Holy one.
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Again, you've been chosen anointed by the Holy one and you have all knowledge or you all have
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Um, and so I think it's important for us to know that there will be people who claim to
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be Christians that maybe even God used to glorify himself through who once claimed to believe the
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Now, again, there's disagreement on this, that that person was never really saved in the first
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Maybe it looked like they were walking the walk.
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They were having a spiritual experience and God decided to use them maybe in some way.
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Like I think about, uh, particular authors who they wrote books that maybe you really benefited
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from, or you learned something from, and then they come out several years later and become
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what they call an exvangelical, or they deconstructed their faith to the point of basically being
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an agnostic, which is always the end of that endeavor.
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Um, and, uh, you wonder, okay, hang on, because they seemed really genuine and they seemed really
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Uh, how, how did this happen that they now were denouncing their faith?
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Well, I think first John two speaks, speaks to that.
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Um, I think that we can safely say that it's not that God chose them and saved them and then
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But rather that they had some sort of spiritual experience and they were able to kind of repeat
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the talking points of biblical Christianity, but their hearts actually weren't regenerated
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I just don't think that human beings have enough power in and of ourselves to be able to do
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And actually, actually that's such a reason to rejoice that I don't have to take responsibility
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I just get to completely and totally rejoice in the Lord.
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Salvation is not one of those things, by the way, where you're constantly wondering for
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If you made it into the elect, if you love God, if you are pursuing God, if you have those
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convictions from the Holy Spirit, then you can rest assured.
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And I think it's that assurance and it's that confidence that the reality of once saved,
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always saved, of Romans 8, that those he predestined, he also called.
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It's that assurance that gives us every reason to worship and to rejoice.
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A lot of people have asked me, hey, can you draw the distinctions between Mormonism or the
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I believe that's the whole church title and what you believe to be Christianity.
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And even saying that there is a distinction or there is any way to distinguish between
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Listen, I've got a lot of people who are Mormons or who call themselves LDS who follow me.
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Maybe you're listening to this podcast right now.
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And typically, people who are in the Mormon church are conservative.
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And we have what sounds like a lot of the same theological views, a lot of the same doctrinal
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And you have probably noticed that there are quite a few influencers and maybe some people
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that you know in your life who are very much striving to say that Mormonism is simply
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a denomination of Christianity, that we need to kind of put aside our differences, that they're
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kind of secondary or tertiary differences, and that they're not gospel differences, that
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essentially people who are Mormons believe in the same gospel.
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You might have also noticed that there is a hard push against the word Mormon.
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This has been a change in the Mormon church that they want to be referred to as the Church
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of Jesus Christ or a Latter-day Saint rather than a Mormon.
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And again, this is a desire to kind of blur any distinctions between what is Orthodox Christianity
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And we could talk about at length about the differences between Mormonism and between Orthodox
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This could be an entire series of podcasts comparing the texts.
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Um, but I think the two biggest things as I have been studying this, and as I have talked
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to a lot of you who identify as Mormons, I think the biggest thing is the, are the contradictory
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And so according to Mormonism or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, according
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to Mormon doctrine, page 321 and teachings of the prophet Joseph Smith, page 345, God is an
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exalted man who actually kind of earned his position through good works.
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Um, and so he is not what Christians view God as, uh, the Bible, uh, the word of God, which
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we don't believe is on par with any other kind of, uh, compilation of so-called scripture or
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We believe that it is the only inerrant scripture, um, says that God has been from the beginning.
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Um, we're not talking about Emmanuel or incarnation that God made flesh, but God, the father was
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I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is and was, and who is to come, the
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He did not elevate himself to the place of God.
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He has been in his position of creator and sustainer and ruler of the universe from eternity
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past, a concept that we as humans, as finite beings can't even, uh, comprehend because we
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He pre-exists time and space, and he has always been God.
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He did not earn his position, uh, according to Christianity of being God.
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He always has been God according to Orthodox Christianity, and that is who he is.
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God is not man that he should lie or a son of man that he should change his mind.
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I also encourage you to read Job 38 through 42 and see who God is and where he has been
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Mormonism believes, and I think this is probably, uh, one of the biggest, if not the biggest
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distinction between Mormonism and Orthodox Christianity, they believe that Jesus was a
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And this is the conversation that I've had with a lot of you who identify, um, as Mormons.
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It is absolutely essential to the Christian faith.
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It's the crux of the Christian faith that Jesus is God and that he is also his only begotten
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And so I know that Mormons believe that Jesus was a son of God, but Christians believe that
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And this is necessary for believing in and understanding the sacrifice that Jesus made
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John 1 is very clear about this, that Jesus is God.
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If you talk to a Mormon, they'll say that the King James version of the Bible and all of
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the Mormon doctrines are completely in line with one another and that there is no contradiction.
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But again, if you look at, for example, Mormon doctrine, page 547, articles of faith, page 35,
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teachings of the prophet Joseph Smith, page 372.
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And then you compare that to John 1, whether you do King James version or whether you do the
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ESV, you will see a contradiction there about who Jesus was.
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And again, that is the crux of the Christian faith.
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In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.
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All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.
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In him was life, and the life was the light of men.
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The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
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And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the
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only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
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For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
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You could read it as, in the beginning was Jesus, and Jesus was with God, and Jesus was
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He was in the beginning with God, and all things were made through Jesus.
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And without Jesus was not anything made that was made.
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And Jesus was life, and the life was the light of men.
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And the light, Jesus, shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
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And Jesus became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen Jesus' glory.
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Gloria is the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
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Grace and truth came through this Jesus Christ.
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Without the belief that Jesus is God, or the belief that God elevated himself to the place
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of God, or that Jesus was just a God and not God himself, that denial of the belief in the
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Trinity, that denial of the belief in Jesus' exclusive Godness as the second person, but
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an equal person in the Trinity, is a denial of the fundamentals of the Christian faith.
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And so we could get into all the differences between Mormonism and Christianity, but the fact
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of the matter is, is that Mormonism has a different idea of who God is, a different idea of who
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Jesus is, and therefore has a different understanding of what salvation is and what the gospel is.
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And so it's not the same as, for example, Baptists saying that we believe in credo-baptism, which
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is what I believe in, that's in believers' baptism, and Presbyterians, for example, believing
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in pedo-baptism, infant baptism, these differences are small differences.
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We believe that we're going to see each other in heaven one day.
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It's not the same as the difference between an Arminian, like we were talking about in
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the beginning, and a Calvinist, someone who believes in total depravity and limited atonement,
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irresistible grace, and the perseverance of the saints, once saved, always saved, and things
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Those are also different forms of doctrine, different forms of Christianity, but we're
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We all agree on what salvation is, essentially.
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Outside of that, you have faiths that look like Christianity in some ways, but don't share
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the core tenets, and that is a core tenet of Christianity, the Godship of Jesus.
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That is essential to understanding why the propitiation, why the sacrifice that he gave
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us on the cross is eternal, and why it covers our sin, how he became our perfect sacrifice,
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to understand that he is also the I am, that he has been here since the beginning, before
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the beginning, that he is preeminent over all creation.
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As the book of Colossians also says, that is essential to Christianity and the gospel.
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And without that, you have something that sounds like Christianity in a lot of ways, and is
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held by a lot of sincere, loving, wonderful, kind people, but is not Orthodox Christianity.
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And so that's just one distinction of the many distinctions, and I would say the most important
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How important is it that you and your spouse agree politically?
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Like, does your husband believe that abortion is fine?
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Does your husband believe in, you know, some form of far leftism and you're like staunchly
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Or is it that you just can't agree completely on tax policy?
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Is it just that you can't agree on the most effective policy for maintaining the security
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I think it depends on how far apart you guys are when it comes to these issues.
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Um, I think that as long as you share the same values and the same faith, I think most
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importantly, in the same biblical worldview, but you just find yourself coming to different
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conclusions on these particular policies, I think that can be okay.
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I think it's when the underneath, like the roots of what you believe in your worldview are
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disparate is when things can really start to unravel and when it makes things harder than
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That's not to say that a Republican and a Democrat can never be together and never make it work.
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But I do think it's so important for you to share core values, because even if you share
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all the same values and you share the same faith and maybe you were raised the same way,
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marriage is still going to be hard because you're living with, you're living with another
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person who has flaws and habits and hangups and, and, uh, is going to disappoint you.
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I mean, you're just going through the hardship of life together.
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Like that's already going to be difficult because life is difficult.
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Now it's worth it and wonderful and beautiful, but it's already going to be difficult.
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Even if you agree on all the essentials, but I think going through those very hard things
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and going through inevitable disagreements and discussions that come with life and not
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agreeing on your core values and not coming from the same essential worldview, that makes
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One of you is going to end up just being quiet and just being like, I think that we're going
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in a bad direction as a family, but I'm just not going to say anything or you're going to
00:28:50.660
So I think what's more important is not that you agree on all the policies.
00:28:54.140
My husband and I probably don't agree on every single political policy or every single
00:28:59.180
political candidate, but we have the same worldview.
00:29:02.940
So at the end of the day, we can, if we say, Hey, I think that, you know, this policy is
00:29:09.800
We can always walk backwards and say, well, here's why.
00:29:13.220
If he says, well, I think socialism is good because there's no reason why the state shouldn't
00:29:23.260
That would be a huge problem because we'd be coming from two totally different positions.
00:29:27.500
But if our why is the same and we just end up coming to different conclusions at the top,
00:29:33.860
You just have to make sure, again, that that world of view and those core values that you