Peter Kierkegaard: Against the Mormons

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[00:00:56] Revived Thoughts is a production of Revive Studios. This is Troy and Elise, and you are listening to Revived Thoughts. The honored speakers who have had the floor so far did not, as far as I could tell,

[00:01:20] have any occasion to bring out the Bible to which they so frequently referred. Every episode, we bring you a different voice from history and a sermon that they delivered. This sermon was delivered in the 19th century in Denmark in 1854. If you're listening right now and you're confused,

[00:01:36] Joel and I still have not been able to get our schedules fully worked out since he was traveling. So in this episode, we're having Elise, who is my wife and also hosts the show Martyrs and Missionaries On.

[00:01:47] She agreed to graciously come on and be the co-host for this episode. Thank you, Elise, for coming on. She's going to help read what we're going through today as we talk about a really interesting and special episode.

[00:01:58] It took me a while to edit this episode, Against the Mormons by Peter Kierkegaard. We're going to talk about that a little bit more. But first, Elise, say hi to everybody. Let them know what show you run and why they should listen to your show.

[00:02:09] Well, it's kind of in the name. It's Martyrs and Missionaries. So in every episode, we look at the life of a martyr or missionary. So we've covered people as far back as the Roman Empire, all the way up to people like Darlene Rose during World War II.

[00:02:23] Gladys Aylward. We've covered the... We do deep dives basically into the history of Christian missions. We've done Greenland. I'm working on one right now on the Moravian missionaries. So yeah, we do a lot of different things. It's fun.

[00:02:37] Now, speaking of episodes and things, we right now have a few positive responses that we have not really been able to get to since we've been doing Thanksgiving stuff. And I put out those two episodes on the Woodrow Wilson.

[00:02:48] If you listen to those, thank you for listening to those. Here are some different messages we received. First one comes from Mountain Badger. Thanks be to God for podcasts like this. Freely, freely, I have received education and inspiration.

[00:03:01] Freely, freely, I need to give. Unfortunately, silver and gold, I have none. And then they said, love the Woodrow Wilson two-part extravaganza. Now, I actually am pretty sure Mountain Badger has left us an Apple podcast review before.

[00:03:12] And I think that they actually were somehow able to edit it and add the Woodrow Wilson bit. I've never seen that before, but I'm pretty sure that's what happened because I recognize reading that review, the musical kind of tone to it.

[00:03:23] Unfortunately, silver and gold, I have none thing. So thank you, Mountain Badger, for going back and specifically bringing the Woodrow Wilson to your comments. Another person, Breaking Idols, I Stand With Uganda on Twitter said, Oh, by the way, my wife and I really enjoyed the Wilson podcast.

[00:03:38] I'm a Post Mill guy and I still liked it. I did not feel like I was picked on, haha. So thank you so much, Breaking Idols. Glad that you did not feel that way. We had some people who were Post Mill who reached out.

[00:03:47] They weren't sure how they felt about it, but we had a lot of people saying they really enjoyed the Woodrow Wilson episodes, which is great because, I mean, it was a two-hour series on Woodrow Wilson.

[00:03:55] So I'm really glad you enjoyed it. It took a lot of work to write. Big Guy Johnny on Spotify wrote, Great episode, but too repetitive on the point of look how Christian his upraising was. Again, this is referring to Woodrow Wilson.

[00:04:08] Was, but how evil he turned out to be. That was him quote, sorry. Without saying what he did wrong was frustrating, but otherwise a good episode. Now I do think that maybe when we got to the part where Woodrow Wilson was pro-eugenics

[00:04:18] and broke down relationships with Japan and helped lead to the rise of the KKK that we did get to the part where he was wrong. I think what Big Guy Johnny was trying to say was in the beginning,

[00:04:28] it took us a while to get to what was wrong with him. That's what I think he's saying. And Joe Marr said, Love the episode on Woodrow Wilson and on Joseph Butler. So thank you guys. That wasn't all the reviews we got,

[00:04:38] but that was just kind of a quick collection I grabbed here. Now this episode is really fun. I love episodes where we have a sermon that happens in kind of like real time where somebody is it, you know,

[00:04:50] because if somebody spends a whole week planning and putting it together, that's awesome. That's great. Most pastors do that, and I think that's perfectly fine. But I really love episodes where a pastor doesn't get that opportunity and he's speaking, you know, kind of on the cuff.

[00:05:03] Like this is our off the cuff start, but kind of like right in that moment, he doesn't have a chance to prepare a whole lot and he has to speak right then and there. This is what this episode is.

[00:05:12] Peter Kierkegaard is speaking in the moment to a room full of Mormons that are holding a service. He had the opportunity to speak and he has to respond to them in real time. And he does an unbelievably amazing job.

[00:05:24] And I can't wait for you to listen to it. But first, Elise, tell us a little bit about how Peter Kierkegaard gets going. So Peter Kierkegaard is born in 1805 and his father is a wealthy wool farmer and a real estate speculator.

[00:05:38] And he had not always been this wealthy. In fact, he'd actually been born very poor and had lived that way for much of his life. His father seemed to have believed that he had somehow cursed God's name when he was young.

[00:05:49] And in Scripture it says that cursing the Holy Spirit cannot be forgiven. Well, Kierkegaard's dad thought he did that. And sure thereafter, he became very wealthy. He took this as a sign of God basically toying with him,

[00:06:00] giving him wealth as a way to almost mock the fact that he was cursed. And he believed that none of his kids would outlive him and he did end up losing two wives and five children. But this curse had a huge impact on the whole family,

[00:06:11] especially on Peter's life and then his very famous brother, Soren. Peter was the oldest brother. Soren is his younger brother. And you probably have heard of Soren Kierkegaard. He's very famous today. He's a philosopher that lived in the 1800s and he's known as the father of existentialism.

[00:06:27] Yes, Soren was actually a Christian man. He wrote his philosophy and works under a pseudonym because he was trying to use them to get people. Didn't really want the attention. He wanted the attention on the works,

[00:06:37] but it was under his real name that he would actually write his Christian writings. He would often attack the church, but not because he hated the church, but he was specifically having trouble with the church in Denmark because he believed that the church in Denmark was ineffective,

[00:06:50] kind of dead and wooden, that even though the buildings were open, people weren't actually living for God. And he wanted that to change. So between his philosophy writings and his actual published writings,

[00:07:00] he was hoping to get people to wake up to the state that the church was in. One of his most famous sermons we actually did too, he did preach a sermon. It was called The Unchangeableness of God. It came out a few years ago.

[00:07:11] And if you've not listened to it, it's definitely a revived thoughts classic. Go download it and listen to it. It's a powerful episode. I actually have a story about that episode as well. The person who spoke it for us, Josiah, really nice guy, read this sermon for us.

[00:07:25] And this is just something that happened that he showed that sermon to his father. It was one of the last things that he and his father got to listen to and talk about before his father passed away.

[00:07:36] And so that's just kind of a really, I mean, sad situation, but also just kind of an awesome memory that one of the last things they did was listen to this gentleman, Josiah, reading the sermon for us and talking about it. So if you haven't listened to it,

[00:07:49] I think it's a really powerful sermon by Soren Kierkegaard. Now, Peter was influenced by his brother's legacy and his life as well. However, Soren kind of let the idea of the curse from his father that we were talking about really play a huge impact on his life.

[00:08:02] Whereas Peter didn't really take it too seriously. And as the oldest brother, he actually outlives everyone else in the family. He outlives his brother, Soren, and he does outlive his father. Soren also, to his credit, does outlive his father as well.

[00:08:15] So the curse clearly didn't actually exist and wasn't real. And again, people are outliving the situation. In 1822, he graduated from the University of Copenhagen. He would have been only 17 years old. And then four years later, he graduated with a candidate.

[00:08:30] As a candidate, it's a specialized degree in Norway and Denmark that is basically the equivalent of a master's of theology. Now, despite his father's feelings of a curse, God and spirituality was very important to Peter and his brother Soren.

[00:08:43] And this may have been partially due to the fact that his mom was very firm in the faith. She wasn't wishy-washy, didn't have a whole lot of stock in this curse either. Now, over the next few years, Peter lived a very academic life.

[00:08:55] He defended his dissertation into Germany. He traveled through Europe, visiting places like Paris and teaching classical languages as he went. And this all went on until 1833 when he was ordained as a priest in a parish. Now, the church in Denmark was different than other churches at the time

[00:09:10] in the fact that it was Lutheran because Denmark had joined the Reformation in the 1500s. But it was a state-supported church, so the government of Denmark was in charge of the church at the time. In many ways, it was a Protestant Lutheran version

[00:09:23] of the Catholic Church in the 1800s. And as you can see, that's maybe why Soren and Peter, who were living through a church that looked like that, would struggle greatly with the empty state churches that had outward obedience but very little inward change.

[00:09:36] Now, his first priesthood was in a really small area where he was kind of covering the church. Even to this day, this part of Denmark, if you include all the townships in this region, has about 10,000 people living in it.

[00:09:48] So I imagine it was even less people living there 150 years ago. About a decade after that, he does upgrade to a bigger area where he's about 15,000 to 20,000 people. So he's moving on up, but it's still a pretty small region.

[00:10:01] I honestly didn't know until I was studying this episode just kind of how small Denmark was as a country. Denmark has about 5 million people living in it to this day. And so, population-wise, Denmark is just a lot smaller than a lot of the other countries that we've covered.

[00:10:15] And that's probably why these regions were important yet small compared to some other places. Now, the town that he was in was the town of Soro. It's kind of a big deal, apparently notable royalty and other people have been buried there.

[00:10:26] So, again, it's a big deal for a town. It's just only 15,000 to 20,000 people. Now, during this time, he was made what's called an official theologian of the church. I tried to look more into what that meant. I don't know. It just meant that he basically had authority

[00:10:38] to speak on theological topics at synods and stuff like that. That was a big deal, but it actually caused him a little bit of trouble because then he would have to go up against his own brother's writings during that time where the church was like,

[00:10:48] what do we do with some of Soro and Kierkegaard's writings? [♪ music playing ♪ Hey, one of our favorite podcasts around here is the Compelled Podcast and one of their recent episodes is quite mind-blowing. When Steve Richardson was seven months old, his parents moved to New Guinea

[00:11:08] to bring the gospel to a tribe of violent Stone Age cannibals. After weeks of preparation, they made their first contact. Steve and his parents traveled to the remote tribe in a canoe and as they rounded the final bend in the river,

[00:11:22] they were shocked to find the site of 400 Sawi warriors armed to the teeth waiting for them. The Sawi had never seen a white person before and they've never been exposed to the outside world at all. They were truly living in the Stone Age

[00:11:36] with axe heads made from rock and zero exposure to modern civilization. In their eyes, Steve's family were workers of the deepest magic they had ever witnessed. Steve's parents possessed a white metal box that could consume a person and then disappear into the sky for weeks

[00:11:54] before reappearing with a completely different person inside. The Richardsons had magical potions that could cure the sickness of a man on his deathbed. But the one thing the Richardsons wanted to share most with the headhunters was a story about a god who died for his enemies.

[00:12:09] What would transpire next would change the course of history for the entire people group and capture the imagination of millions more. Listen to Steve share his one of a kind story on episode 65 of the Compelled Podcast. You can find it by searching Compelled

[00:12:24] on your favorite podcast app of choice or visit compelledpodcast.com Again, that's compelledpodcast.com With Shopify, you can create your own online shop without any programming or design knowledge. Thanks to the efficient installation and intuitive social media and online marketplace integration

[00:13:00] you can advertise and sell via Instagram, eBay and Co. Reaching new target groups has never been so easy. Shopify offers all the tools to build your online business on a single, secure platform. Test for free and present your business to the world. Visit shopify.de-try

[00:13:20] Simply type in shopify.de-try and start. Made for Germany. Powered by Shopify. Some of the things that Soren wrote about went against the theology or the official church line and although Peter loved his brother he had no problem critiquing his brother's philosophical works before the different synods.

[00:13:45] This seemed to affect his relationship with his brother overall and he did give the official eulogy for his brother in 1855 which was just a year after this speech. In 1856, he becomes a bishop in his region and then 10 years later he becomes a minister of Kultis

[00:14:01] which is also in Denmark. Now this person was responsible for the political work between the church and the country of Denmark. He dies in 1888. Now one thing we do not talk about is that Denmark had a really, really large revival in the years 1848 to 1850

[00:14:17] and Denmark made an official liberal constitution that allowed freedom of religion. So Baptists, Methodists and many other groups began to preach revival and that was as strong as the second great awakening in America and Britain. But at the same time this revival was under attack

[00:14:32] by false cults that swept in. One such cult was the Church of the Latter Day Saints or the Mormons. Now in the early 19th century, Mormonism has been started by Joseph Smith as you probably know. And what's actually interesting is I found this sermon on the website.

[00:14:47] It was actually provided by BYU. So they're a Mormon group but thank you for providing what I think is a pretty great response to Mormonism at the time in Denmark. They kind of did it as like a here's a study of the historical value of it

[00:14:57] but I think he does such an amazing job that I'm surprised that they put this on their website for us to read. Mormons quickly started to spread around the world and they saw Denmark as right for the picking as the follow of the old state church

[00:15:08] that again Kierkegaard and these guys have been talking about how the old state church of Denmark just wasn't working. And as it was kind of falling away people were starting to switch into things like Baptists and Methodists. But Mormons saw this as a great opportunity

[00:15:19] to move in on that territory. Now, and it worked by the way. A lot of Danish people ended up moving to America during this time and almost all of them were coming over to America because of the LDS church. Danish people had largely stuck with Denmark

[00:15:34] and actually hadn't really moved to America until this time period. But during this time 17,000 Danish people moved to Utah to join the kingdom quote unquote kingdom of God that is happening out there and the Mormon church this time. There was a story about some Mormons

[00:15:49] basically a big large group of them passing through America during the Civil War trying to get away from the fighting in the North and the South to get out to Utah. There was another odd history fact apparently the sculptor who sculpted Mount Rushmore

[00:16:03] is the son of Danish Utah immigrants who left Utah after being there a while. All of that is just kind of random off sides. We can get back to Denmark here but thousands of people across Denmark start becoming Mormons during this time

[00:16:14] and when Kierkegaard heard about one of his congregants becoming a Mormon and hosting a meeting and inviting people to come he was asked to come. And not only was he invited to this meeting he was told he could respond at the end as well

[00:16:26] like hey you can get a chance to talk. So he went to the meeting the meeting happened at night and it lasted for hours. They were singing songs three different speakers got up each of them giving very impassioned

[00:16:37] you know, here's the reason why you should be a Mormon speeches to the people that were present. I had to cut some of the manuscript because he's giving it in real time and literally there are parts of it that were him just kind of talking

[00:16:47] specifics to the people in the room that wouldn't make sense to us. But most of what you're listening to is him carefully responding to the points that he is directly hearing as he was at this meeting. What you are about to hear is his explanation

[00:16:59] of what he said in kind of the complete form. It's really interesting. He does an amazing job. I challenge, I think a lot of us would be challenged to give such a full presentation of both taking down our opponents and also presenting the true gospel

[00:17:14] in such a good form as he does. Listen now as we hear his response to the Mormons that were coming into Denmark in the 18 around 1854 and how he defends Jesus Christ against this false cult. Before I express my thoughts about some of the things

[00:17:43] which have here been quote made known by proclamation and as you explained quote incomplete accord with reason I will be so bold as to ask someone among those here present to take this Bible which I brought with me just in case

[00:18:01] to look up and if it be required read out the scriptural passages to which I will refer. This is in order to point out to me or at least take notice if I should cite any of them incorrectly. The honored speakers who have had the floor so far

[00:18:19] did not as far as I could tell have any occasion to bring out the Bible to which they so frequently referred not even to read aloud what is actually written in it. One can easily obtain the appearance of proving by the scriptures whatever is at stake

[00:18:36] if one dares to be satisfied with occasionally quoting a few random words which while the speaker continues on sound to a casual listener approximately like what is actually found within the Bible. If the Mormon gentlemen have not yet learned this basic fact it does not speak particularly well

[00:18:56] for either their fundamental insights into the subjects they profess to speak of and it speaks worse for their consciences if they know this and still attempt to catch us in such a snare. Since their honorable defenders have today presented such great quantities of tangible nonsense

[00:19:15] about very specific details individual elements of their points might even be true as far as they go. However, these central claims must still submit to being tested namely by having the things their announcers have proclaimed and emphasized so loudly while they claim so decisively to speak according to

[00:19:37] the promptings of the Spirit. Compared with those things that we know from other sources to be their actual doctrine the final speaker said that the Lord Himself declared that those sheep who are not of this fold should also hear the voice of the Lord

[00:19:54] and be gathered into the one fold under the one shepherd. It is this word that was fulfilled when He as it has now been made known by proclamation after His resurrection in the land of the Jews went to America and founded His church among the peoples there.

[00:20:14] And there would be a degree of sense in this speech if the Lord had said something such as For these I will travel. But instead at the place to which the speaker referred it reads Them also I must bring. John 10 16 I namely to the sheep of this fold

[00:20:34] that is to the Christians of Jewish descent among whom the Lord has already begun to establish His church. This is where the speaker omitted those of the Lord's words which proved that He did not by any means speak of a trip to America. He omitted them

[00:20:51] in order to be able to misinterpret the rest without reference. Is this perhaps how He intends to teach us to treat that which He still calls the Holy Word? The speaker stressed further that the usual explanation by which we understand the sheep of the other fold

[00:21:08] to be the heathen tribes who are gradually being gathered into the original church of Jewish Christians is false in any case because the Gentiles have never heard the Lord's voice and it states in our Scripture that They will hear my voice. What else does that prove

[00:21:26] than that the speaker is totally unfamiliar with or refuses to understand the Bible's language? In the Bible, Christian preaching whether it is done by the apostles of the Lord or their successors, whether it is carried out primarily by trained teachers or by the common confession

[00:21:46] of the entire church is consistently and continually spoken of as the Lord's own word and own voice. The word of the Lord is the word which is preached to you, wrote the apostle Peter to the churches in the Middle East, 1 Peter 1.25 For from you sounded out

[00:22:05] the word of the Lord, wrote Paul to the Macedonian Christians, 1 Thessalonians 1.8 In both cases, to and about people who had not had the Lord physically among them, they expressed themselves in accordance with the instructions given by the Lord Himself. He that hears you hears Me, Luke 10.16

[00:22:28] The Lord Himself foresaw the spread of His kingdom to all peoples, though they could not all have Him visibly among them when He testified before the judgment seat of Pilate, Every one that is of the truth hears My voice, John 18.37 We have been informed that according to Ezekiel 37,

[00:22:50] the prophet Ezekiel was commanded to take two pieces of wood and to write on one for Judah and his brethren, and on the other for Joseph and his brethren. The latter is understood to be none other than the inhabitants of America, who are descendants of the kingdom

[00:23:10] of the ten tribes with the exiles of Joseph's tribe at their head. And that is also, as the story has led us to expect, why plates were found among these inhabitants of America by Joseph Smith. Now, my friends, I will not delay by proving that the prophet

[00:23:28] who was referred to in the quoted scripture and its corresponding image foresaw only the end of the division that had developed among the people of God since the death of Solomon and the days of Jeroboam through the reunification of all true Israelites in that church which would,

[00:23:45] after the coming of Christ, hear the voice of the Lord and preserve his testimony. And I will refer only in passing to the account of how the ten tribes somehow made their way to America more than two thousand years ago and how they managed there a story which,

[00:24:02] when it suddenly surfaces now without any trace or report of it having emerged in the time which has elapsed since, comes at least two thousand years too late to be accepted by any reasonable person of history. It should be rejected as an entirely unwarranted fairy tale. But instead,

[00:24:24] I will only allow myself the humble request for clarification. Was it due to the length of time that has passed since said piece of wood was addressed to Joseph and his brethren or was it due to the distance between the Euphrates and America that Joseph Smith

[00:24:42] was able to rediscover what was originally a piece of wood as now a collection of metal plates? If this thing happened somehow by natural causes, one should certainly be able to demonstrate it by referring to other similar transformations. If, however, the transformation came about by a miracle,

[00:25:02] then that miracle was particularly unfortunate since it does not in fact support the doctrine and the revelation but instead makes it impossible. for any reasonable person to recognize Ezekiel's notched stick in Joseph Smith's stack of plates. So this miracle actually made it harder to believe in what happened.

[00:25:25] It was also stated that a segment of America's original inhabitants became black as a result of their sins according to Mormon doctrine. If that is the case, then the poor souls must also have become invisible. The whole thing is reminiscent of a nursery tale told by a peasant

[00:25:44] who recounts that some of Eve's children became elves and trolls because she had forgotten to wash them one morning and therefore tried to convince God that she had no children except those who were clean. As is well known, all of the blacks who now live in America

[00:26:00] were either brought there from Africa as slaves during the past 350 years or are the descendants of such slaves. For the original inhabitants of America whom the Europeans found there and of whom there are still significant remnants are, as everyone knows, not at all black.

[00:26:19] This is attested by the fact that they are often called red men. So then, the claim that the group of people who are honored guest speaker so boldly blackened must have been completely eradicated from the earth as a punishment and warning to the rest of us.

[00:26:37] That would be the most likely explanation except he seems to know nothing of it. So then, what is the purpose of the account of them in the Book of Mormon? But here we encounter once again one of these 2,000 years too recent reports of incredible world events

[00:26:54] the effects of which are supposed to have vanished entirely without a trace of them. It is as if we find we are dealing with an Arabian tale from a thousand and one nights. For these stories supposedly have this extreme level of importance yet vanish like will-o'-the-wisps

[00:27:13] without leaving so much as ashes behind. They must certainly never be mentioned in proximity to that which not only contemporary texts tell us about Jesus or even the miracles of Moses but also the things of Scripture are substantiated by numerous inanimate monuments of all possible kinds

[00:27:32] as well as by a continuous incomprehensibly great chain of mutually corresponding effects in the history of the Jewish and Christian peoples in all places up to the present day. This is a witness which could not be silenced even if no literature no architectural ruins or monuments

[00:27:52] and no living people remained on the earth. Now moving on. God has a body said the same speaker. And on this occasion he blended truth and falsehood so completely together that the whole thing has begun to ferment and become completely indigestible. Yes, God certainly has a physical body

[00:28:14] for God is both the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And since the Son became a man and was resurrected from the dead then of course he did not reclaim his physical body from death in order to put it aside ever again.

[00:28:28] He ascended to heaven with it. He reigns with it in the glory of Godhood up above and he will come again with it to judge the living and the dead. For it has been written that the disciples saw him taken up and that the angels testified for them

[00:28:44] that he would come again as they saw him ascend. But although the truth of this is apparent to everyone who believes in him it must also be differentiated from the doctrine which was just presented which claims to assign either to God the Father or the Trinity

[00:29:01] a divine body of his own as eternal as his essence the model for Adam's body. When such a claim is supported by the assertion that God manifested himself in the flesh several times prior to the birth of Christ to Abraham to Moses etc. It is only the result

[00:29:20] of gross ignorance of that which the scriptures plainly teach. That the Father was revealed not only in the Son John 1.18 and 1 Timothy 6.16 but also that he truly revealed himself to the patriarchs through him as his eternal word John 1.1-14 the brightness of his glory Hebrews 1.3

[00:29:42] the angel of his presence Isaiah 63.9 and spoke with Moses face to face as a man speaks to his neighbor Exodus 33.11 and Numbers 12.8 Yes, even though Moses could not bear the full sight of his glory and let all his goodness pass before him so that Moses saw only

[00:30:04] his back Exodus 33.18 through chapter 34 verse 8 Yet the fact that the claim made today cites for its support the word of the Lord to Philip He that has seen me has seen the Father John 14.9 makes it seem almost like a secret test that had been given

[00:30:26] in order to determine whether we are actually not listening and instead are just talking in our sleep for it must be immediately apparent to those of us who are awake that this scripture shows that the Father has no divine body of his own for it is here

[00:30:42] that we hear the Lord explain precisely this matter It was incorrect when Philip said show us the Father and imagined then that he could be seen physically in another way than the apostles had already seen him namely in the Son It does not state there

[00:30:58] as this new doctrine claims that he who has seen God in the flesh has seen an image very similar to that of the Father but that one such has seen the Father who is therefore not physically visible except precisely in the Son The guest speaker in this discussion

[00:31:16] said that there are now almost 600 different denominations all of whom call themselves Christians and that this demonstrates sufficiently the magnitude of the apostasy the downfall of the church and the necessity of joining the latter day saints instead of such a babble Well, yes then to each his own

[00:31:41] For then there will be since the gentlemen also desire to be considered Christians now 601 denominations each of which cries out No, this is the way No, salvation is to be found here and then the next heresy which may arise in the future will be able to argue

[00:32:00] just as these gentlemen have done Its spokesman will once again say that the conclusion of Babylon has come to the 601 denominations so that one must flee from them to us for we are the lattermost saints with the most recent wisdom namely number 602 For my part I cannot help

[00:32:21] but think that it is nonsense to begin by attempting to prove that Christianity has failed on the basis of the fact that there are numerous denominations who are in disagreement and yet all wish to be counted as Christian And then to endorse a new denomination which is also

[00:32:40] in disagreement with all of the others and which also wishes to be counted as Christian And I cannot understand at all what is supposedly proved against true Christianity by the numbers of contesting denominations all of which claim to be Christian and cannot of course all be

[00:32:58] Or were there perhaps no false Christians and heretical groups in the days of the apostles Even though the apostles themselves refer to them in their writings excommunicate them and warn against them Was it not for precisely this reason that the church was founded and true Christianity

[00:33:17] established on the earth Or is there perhaps no honest man left on earth since it is notorious that nearly all heretics want to be considered honest Are there no more virtuous virgins simply because many of those we call by such a title during the marriage ceremony

[00:33:35] are neither virgins nor virtuous In short the fact that there are many groups which while disagreeing amongst themselves each individually claim to belong to or represent the church of the Lord proves only that one must not blindly accept everyone as a Christian or a teacher of Christianity

[00:33:56] who claims to be such and who rejects the teaching of others For in these two things must the false preachers if they do not wish to start warning against themselves speak precisely the same as those who preach the real truth But if one must be wary

[00:34:12] of confiding in someone simply because he proclaims himself to be a teacher of the only true Christianity then there is most likely no one in whom one should have less cause to confide than such teachers who come and go like migratory birds and who send their disciples

[00:34:30] on long journeys to far corners of the earth almost before they can properly learn the new doctrine with more than their ears and tongues Therefore the more they encourage crossing the great desert to Utah where the temple is being erected and where the Lord will reveal himself

[00:34:49] one of these days the more clearly well-taught Christians must remember the Lord's words about false preachers When they say that Christ is in the desert do not follow them there and when they say that He is in the chambers then do not believe it Matthew 24 23 through 26

[00:35:11] The more we must of course realize that since the second coming of the Lord will be according to His own promise as the light which radiates from the east and shines into the west Matthew 24 27 Those who follow the star of the west to meet Him first

[00:35:30] have been falsely informed At this point I must conclude our discussion of some of the more isolated inaccuracies and absurdities which we have heard this evening from the three preceding speakers But their central claims are First It has been vigorously discussed here that the Church of the Lord

[00:35:51] which He founded among the Jewish people in the olden days and in which and for which His apostles lived and worked no longer exists It is not to be found within the so-called Christianity that now exists on earth but rather vanished many hundreds of years ago

[00:36:10] The last honored speaker phrased it more forcefully than was necessary even from his standpoint He noticed that this Church of the Lord had disappeared at the time of the destruction of the apostles He blamed this on the Popes But even discounting this rather than amusing mistake

[00:36:31] by which the Popes arrived rather abruptly on the scene of world history approximately five or six hundred years earlier than they are otherwise known to be there and discounting the equally suspicious nature of this most recent bit of information according to which it must be remembered

[00:36:49] the earliest bishops in Rome after the days of the apostles who had until now been considered the friends of the apostles but according to our speakers who in all secrecy without it even being suspected by anyone until the arrival of the Mormons succeeded in convincing Emperor Nero

[00:37:09] or his officials to have Peter and Paul killed as martyrs in Rome Again discounting as I said these proofs of what happens when one lets one's mouth direct one's thoughts instead of the thoughts of the mouth But there can be no remaining doubt that the claim

[00:37:30] that the Lord's church disappeared many centuries ago is both part of the Mormon doctrine and indispensable to them if they are to make any progress and convert anyone The central cornerstone of the new wisdom which currently keeps us from America the claim that the Lord's church has vanished

[00:37:50] is curiously enough nearly as old as the holy universal church itself Nearly all heretics depend upon it and it has been proclaimed to us as an explicit doctrine by nearly every heretical group through the procession of centuries That church which was the universal one we heard in the

[00:38:13] fourth century from Augustine no longer exists mainly according to those who are outside it Already a hundred and fifty years earlier it had been proclaimed by one of the many companies of heretics among the manichees that the holy universal church had perished even earlier than our exalted

[00:38:33] speaker here dared to estimate its demise That it had namely perished the day our Lord ascended to heaven in that even his apostles these spiritless Galileans had already misunderstood his teachings and the order of salvation in essentially all aspects So the talk of the disappearance of the

[00:38:56] Lord's church from the earth is quite old And why wouldn't it be? Did he not foretell with certainty that his disciples would suffer the same fate as he himself John 15 20 And was not the first event following his ordination to his ministry when the spirit descended upon his head

[00:39:15] on the banks of the Jordan that the tempter stood by him and whispered Are you really God's son? When throughout the rest of the Lord's subsequent ministry on the earth the accusation that he was not who he is and who he claims to be John 8 24 25 Luke 22 67 71

[00:39:38] Was his constant companion until it triumphantly pointed its finger at him as he hung between two thieves Matthew 27 39-44 How could it be different than that his church would be tested by the same fate? How can it then surprise us when the church even on the day

[00:39:58] of its anointing by the Holy Spirit that is when the spirit descended on the little group on Pentecost and the universal church was seen completely present while the apostles spoke in all the tongues but it was accused that the whole thing was false excitement and ill-timed intoxication?

[00:40:17] The above-mention accusation that the church which the Lord himself established in days of old has long since dwindled and been destroyed is as we can see an old trick. However the claim itself appears to have the stamp of permanence such that it will certainly never completely be silenced

[00:40:39] on earth until the Lord comes again in his Father's glory and fulfills his promise to lead the bride who is the church itself home to the great bridal feast. It was the case made by the Montanists Manichaeans Muslims Cathars Quakers and every other sect which has arisen

[00:40:59] after the establishment of the church but time's trial by fire always goes against them for not one of them has been able to maintain itself by spiritual power and as a spiritual force for even just a few centuries. Their names would be largely forgotten if the original

[00:41:16] now 1800 year old universal church did not remember them for the sake of the battles it has fought against them. By contrast the fundamental aim of all sects and sect founders their first and last word is to assert that they are the only people and kingdom which can trace

[00:41:35] their descent from the days of the Lord and his apostles without blatant self-contradiction and lies. And all that those whose faith and whose baptism no one has yet been able to prove to be different from that of Peter and Paul and John and Irenaeus and Augustine and Ansgar

[00:41:55] and Luther and us are not in fact the Lord's people but only pretend to be such over the grave of the real church. And yet in their confusion and without themselves knowing or desiring it they themselves function as witnesses for the church's unbroken existence.

[00:42:18] The founders of each sect though they otherwise condemn their predecessors and are condemned by those who come after them consistently repeat the claim the Lord's church has perished and use all of the tricks of their disposal to prove this claim once and for all. When considered

[00:42:35] in the light of truth however this claim is nothing more than an unwilling admission that an old building still stands firmly on the spot that they would so dearly like to call an abandoned lot and that this building is precisely the reason that their own new buildings

[00:42:51] cannot be located anywhere except in the clouds. It is only that they all insist on the illegitimacy of historical Christianity because they realize or at least sense that history's witness of the Christian people their faith and their confession testifies against them. Now they disagree on when it fell

[00:43:16] for some claim the church collapsed upon the Lord's departure others with the destruction of the apostles others in the fourth seventh or eleventh century and so on ad infinitum. These discrepancies should serve as an involuntary testimony to every impartial person that the church has been neither verifiably

[00:43:38] nor recognizably destroyed and for every enlightened Christian as a sign that these dissenters believe just as little in the historical Christ he who came in the flesh as in the holy universal church. I would also like to attempt a refutation of the claim in question from other perspectives

[00:43:57] as well. At least this much is I hope I dare assume clear to every one of you that it causes our reverence for the Lord to suffer or more correctly destroys our faith in him if we let ourselves be seduced into believing that the church that he founded

[00:44:15] has been destroyed. Already in Old Testament times the Lord asked what could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it? Isaiah 5, 4 That is precisely why neither the ancient covenant nor its people could perish. Instead, they are both fulfilled by and transformed into

[00:44:37] the new covenant and its people in the fullness of time. Matthew 5, 17 and 18 and Romans 11, 16 through 32 as well as Acts 3, 25 and 26. But for this latter people for the church that the Lord raised up by his hand from among the Jews and Gentiles for the vineyard therefore. Matthew 20, verse 1

[00:45:01] whose countless branches and shoots all ultimately derive from and are connected to the one true vine. John 15, verse 1 Even with the tree of life in the renewed paradise for this same vineyard God the Father was able to do more than for the first as it is written

[00:45:19] that he said what will I do? I will send my beloved son. Luke 20, 13 And that he truly sent him who calls himself and is in fact both the way and the truth and the life. John 14, 6 And sent him in the likeness of sinful flesh

[00:45:37] and as a sacrifice for sin. Romans 8, 3 For the purpose of sanctifying all those who are of the truth. John 3, 16 John 5, 24 and John 18, 37 And how could it be possible if we believe in the Son seriously to pursue the thought and consider it for a few moments

[00:45:58] to be reasonable or tolerable that the kingdom which he founded should have perished or could perish even if the heavens and the earth were destroyed much less before that much less after the passage of a few generations or a few meager centuries when the truth

[00:46:15] for it is older than the first lie will also survive the most recent lie and have the last word when all those mouths that speak these falsehoods have been stopped. Psalm 63, 11 Or should we on the other hand attempt to persuade ourselves and others that all of the generations

[00:46:33] which have lived between the days of the ancient church or even the days of the apostles and Joseph Smith's and our time among whom the name of Jesus has been called upon and the Trinity has been worshipped have been nothing but purely hypocrites and liars

[00:46:50] for they have to be since the kingdom of the Lord whose voice will be heard by all those who are of the truth has been gone from the earth all that time throughout 12 or 17 centuries because there was not in all that time consistently even two or three

[00:47:08] who were joined in his name. Matthew 18, 20 If I recall all three presentations correctly they claim that everything they teach quote agrees absolutely with reason. As anyone can easily recognize the issue then becomes regarding Mormon preaching as a whole and particularly their doctrine of the apostasy essentially as follows

[00:47:35] do we consider it to be unreasonable and even self-contradictory to believe in the only begotten son of the eternal father who will come in the fullness of time in order to establish an eternal kingdom of truth and mercy here on earth among the fallen people

[00:47:51] and then to claim that this same kingdom perished long ago. We are told that we should be simple and not have any dealings with the wisdom of the wise but rather to keep our human reason captive to the obedience of faith which means here attempt to believe

[00:48:06] yes and no about the same matter but if it occurs to us to raise the small question of why we actually should believe the Mormons and not anyone else who might want to train us to think nonsensical thoughts and self-contradictions then the answer is because the doctrines

[00:48:24] of the Mormons are completely in harmony with reason in all aspects and therefore free from self-contradictions agreeing in every particular with every other and in its entirety that is then the same doctrine which a moment before rejected the involvement of reason as utterly unjustified which a moment earlier

[00:48:46] did not want to be tested by the standard of reason but rather be believed as self-contradictory despite reason now wants to be believed because it is reasonable in each and every way and yet our Mormon guides would have us believe all this in every way they lead one

[00:49:06] down a false path naturally someone who is otherwise seriously concerned with an immovable truth and an eternal comfort and can in a spiritual sense count to five can hardly be satisfied and soothed by the Mormon wisdom offered to us here tonight that the same church

[00:49:25] that Christ personally established disappeared at the same time as the destruction of the apostles that is to say more than 1700 years ago but has been renewed and restored a quarter of a century ago by Joseph Smith in America already at this point in our investigation

[00:49:45] it is namely easy enough to see that if the work of the divine human is supposed to have vanished after the passing of a few human generations because of the corrupt world's violence and deceit then Mr. Joseph Smith restoration of the same which is still under development

[00:50:01] for it is perpetually new revelations cannot expect with the least reasonableness or probability greater duration in its uncorrupted form than at the most a few months unless Smith is to be depicted as something even higher than God's only begotten son which is both exceedingly unreasonable and blasphemous

[00:50:23] the Lord himself reveals this when he commands make disciples of all nations which means as our fathers aptly expressed it to Christianize all people baptizing them Matthew 28 19 this is verified by the history of the church over 18 centuries during which baptism has represented the distinction

[00:50:46] between it and the world and concerning this matter to mention in passing even the Mormons are of the same opinion such that it is also by a so called baptism that one can gain admission to and entrance into their as it is called only true Christian community

[00:51:06] if the baptism that God instituted even if time is not calculated even half as generously as our Mormon preachers would like has indeed been abolished everywhere and replaced throughout Christendom by an invalid ceremony of man's own making an unauthorized and illegitimate than the obvious consequence

[00:51:28] unless one could possibly discover a group of people who have continued to live on earth all that time have attained the age of several hundred years is that the church has died out and vanished along with the last person who was baptized in the correct and original manner

[00:51:46] for they have unmistakable observation is this the Mormon baptism whether its origins are traced back to Joseph Smith himself or to one of his earliest disciples or friends who baptized him and by whom he was baptized it appears this baptism is itself a fraud

[00:52:08] for the charge that the church vanished long ago and that baptism has been corrupted for centuries and everywhere is just an entirely unfounded and groundless claim or to speak in plain Danish a gross lie and an impertinent slander for Joseph Smith was born in this century

[00:52:28] in the same year as I was and neither he nor his friend was baptized before his birth just as it is certain enough that baptism both in 1805 and 1705 and 1605 was administered everywhere in Christendom as it is now with regard to all of the elements of which

[00:52:48] the Mormons disapprove so that it has at least not been changed for us poor souls after the gentleman had received it in another and better form in the church it helps but little to count with the assertion that Joseph Smith and his friend

[00:53:04] despite the downfall of the church and the corruption of baptism among the so called Christians were nevertheless properly baptized namely either by an angel or by an angel's decree for either the angel acted contrary to that which the church's founder Jesus Christ ordained when he appointed his church

[00:53:24] to perform baptisms Matthew 28 in which case it is most likely the same angel who said to Eve, you will not surely die. Genesis 3, 4 and 5 or else the Lord, God forbid that we should even consider this thought, broke his promise and did not remain with the church

[00:53:44] until the end of the world and was therefore forced at some point in time to make up for this neglect by sending an angel to a treasure hunter in America but in that case it would be idolatry to believe in such a Lord who forgets

[00:53:58] to keep his word and then has to correct his own mistake. If on the other hand one assumes that Joseph Smith and his friend were not in fact properly baptized themselves and it must in any case be the Mormon's own claim that Smith was not baptized

[00:54:14] when he received the first of his purported visions but that the gentlemen were made capable in an extraordinary manner of recognizing how the proper baptism they themselves had not received should be performed and then of teaching it to the rest of us, then this

[00:54:30] interpretation of the situation cannot pretend to be any more reliable than the one they themselves have proposed. This is the way which Joseph Smith by his own confession would not or could not follow since the church according to his account

[00:54:46] did not exist when he and his friends were born and raised. If we remember the Lord's insistence on the absolute necessity of the new birth by means of water and the Spirit in order to see the Kingdom of God, Joseph Smith has therefore been entirely incapable

[00:55:02] of seeing the Kingdom of God from the very beginning. Of truly recognizing its nature, its spirit, its life, its true members, its unchangeable institutions, etc. When he began to see angels therefore he was unable to judge whether they truly belong to the Kingdom of God as ministering spirits

[00:55:22] sent for the sake of those who will be the heirs of salvation, Hebrews 1.14, or to the spirit army of wickedness that disguises itself as angels of light, Ephesians 6.12 and 2 Corinthians 11.14. When he was guided in his buried treasure hunting to find the mysterious plates,

[00:55:44] he was unable to determine whether or not their content was consistent with the nature of the Kingdom of God. When he heard voices that slandered and mocked the church on earth and its baptism, he was not able to judge according to the truth whether or

[00:55:58] not this was justified. In short, if one wishes to pass the mildest possible judgment on Joseph Smith, disregarding the fact that he, by all reliable accounts and all other characteristics, invented his angels, his plates, and his revelations himself, and assuming for a

[00:56:16] moment his own account of events to be true, he exposes himself by his own words when compared with the Lord's words to Nicodemus as a person who, unbaptized and therefore not born again, could not see the Kingdom of God but still audaciously allowed himself to listen to angels

[00:56:34] without knowing whether they came from heaven or from hell. He then went on to evaluate Scripture without knowing if they originated in the Kingdom of God or the devil's archives, to judge baptism without having received it, and the church without having become a member of it.

[00:56:50] But all such dealings are, according to the Lord's words to Nicodemus, the height of foolishness. And just as the Lord rejected his complacent assertion, we know that you are a teacher come from God, John 3 verse 2. And so must enlightened Christian always reject Joseph Smith's smug claim,

[00:57:12] I know that it was an angel of truth, scriptures of truth, a renewal of the Kingdom of God that had come to me, although I was not baptized with that baptism which I now offer you. In other words, which will perhaps make it easier to summarize the situation,

[00:57:28] a man who himself admits that he began as a non-Christian and that he himself asserts that Christianity had vanished before he came to earth. This is the man who, from the exalted position of outsider, takes it upon himself to lead the rest of us into true Christianity.

[00:57:46] This is as if a man were to offer his services as a voice teacher and by way of recommending himself boasted that he, prior to conceiving this idea, had no training in music and was before this idea tone deaf. I have lingered at length on these two observations

[00:58:06] that we have just examined because it is primarily in their light that one can and must see the baselessness of all this talk of the corruption of baptism. We could talk of the Greek word for baptism or how baptisms were done

[00:58:20] in the Middle East two thousand years ago, but this must necessarily involve much scholarly information that will hardly be comprehensible to the unschooled. But if one nevertheless desires to discuss the issue, as our Mormon speakers did, despite their proclaimed simplicity and unschooled brilliance, casting out scholarly postulates

[00:58:40] about such things which are literally Greek and Hebrew to them, rather than sticking to or even just touching on their main views, then I will gladly take part in it. The truth of this cannot, of course, be made evident to anyone except those who can themselves read

[00:58:56] and translate the books of the New Testament as they are written in Greek. But our Mormon congregation here cannot do that, which shows even more clearly how unreasonable it is for these people, who must believe blindly in the accuracy of the translation of the Bible's content

[00:59:12] as it is found throughout Christianity, to claim that this same Christianity has corrupted baptism and doctrine, and must therefore wouldn't it also be negligent in its translation of the Scriptures. As I stated before, I will gladly discuss all this and more with anyone who desires to have these

[00:59:30] particular points clarified. But to sum up my points here, the first point is that if baptism has been corrupted, then the church has been destroyed. If so, its founder, who promised to remain until the end of the world, is not the Son of God

[00:59:46] and faith in Him is falsehood and idolatry. Therefore, no one who believes that baptism is and has long been corrupted everywhere on earth can truly be or sincerely and with heartfelt desire want to be a Christian. The next point is that Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormons,

[01:00:04] has either received the proper baptism from the church to whom the Lord entrusted it, Matthew 28, 19 and 20, in which case he is lying and blaspheming when he calls baptism corrupted and the church destroyed, or else he has not received true baptism, in which case

[01:00:22] he is blind concerning the kingdom of God and the holy universal church, its nature, and its institutions, John 3-5, so that he is a blind guide when he recommends to us the Mormon baptism. If we now turn, in closing, to the third central

[01:00:38] claim that was presented to us this evening, namely regarding the Lord's return to give judgment and the gathering of the faithful to Him and salvation with Him, there is in this doctrine a curious blend of truth and falsehood. Many of the things that have just been

[01:00:54] fervently proclaimed here are well founded, but can only rarely be touched upon because of the weak state of the churches in this region, which require constant attention to the founding principles of Christianity. For example, that the wilderness of animals and the barrenness of the fields will cease,

[01:01:12] likewise the confusion and viciousness in the hearts of men that contain the reason for them, Romans 8, 18-23, Isaiah 11, 4-9, and Isaiah 65, 20-25, and many more passages. And that in this state of bliss that which is written will literally be fulfilled, namely that the meek

[01:01:36] shall inherit the earth, Matthew 5, 5. Even that which has been declared here, that these things will take place in a millennial kingdom of God on the earth, an assertion which many of my listeners likely have heard for the first time on this occasion, is by no means

[01:01:52] unbiblical, although not heavily emphasized in Scripture and on those occasions is relatively difficult constructions. Revelation 20, 4-6, and 2 Peter 3-8, and other such passages. As though the Spirit wanted to ensure that these imaginings would not be immediately seized upon and humanly misunderstood by new converts,

[01:02:16] but rather only gradually should dawn, as it were, on those who are advanced and strengthened in the faith. For my part, I would gladly speak much more often about all of this in the church than has often been the case, since it

[01:02:30] is edifying to think about and to read about in the Scriptures. At this point, however, the speaker who dwelt at length on this joined it to a double falsehood. In the first place, he would not hear of the notion that this state of bliss on the

[01:02:46] transfigured earth is yet another preparation for even greater happiness in the glorious heavens. He did not understand that the church would raise itself from this state on earth into the skies, just as the Lord ascended into heaven. He even spoke with contempt about such a hope, as empty

[01:03:04] and hollow and contradictory to the Scriptures. But in this he has the very testimony of the Scriptures against him. In precisely the same passage that he himself cited, salvation on the glorified earth is explained as lasting, not eternally, but rather a thousand years,

[01:03:22] to be followed by the day of judgment and the state thereafter. Revelation 20, 4-15, 21, verse 1. Paul states explicitly that both the believers who died previously and took part in the first resurrection, and the millennium for such is the first resurrection called, Revelation 20, 5-6,

[01:03:44] as well as the believers who still live in mortality, will finally be caught up together in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and remain with the Lord forever. 1 Thessalonians 4, 16-17. And by his own word he will be there when they can behold the glory he

[01:04:02] possessed before the foundations of the world were laid. John 17, 24. One of the final speaker's misconceptions about this matter can be found herein in that he does not or chooses not to know that the primary characteristics of the life of Christ, as named in the second article of faith,

[01:04:22] will be repeated in his church so that we will not simply be resurrected with perfected bodies as he was, but also ascend into heaven with them as he did and as has been prefigured by Enoch, Genesis 5, 24, and Elijah, 2 Kings 2, 11. The second misconception, which is

[01:04:42] far more destructive, is found in the fact that he spoke as if the millennium could and should come before the resurrection of the dead. 300 years ago a large group in Germany taught a similar doctrine, the Münzer and Münster and Baptists. Their actions are also remarkably similar

[01:05:00] to those of the Mormons, for they also attempted, in direct consequence of the expectation of an earthly kingdom of God prior to the resurrection of the dead, to build a kingdom of God of this world. John 18, 36 and 37. And to establish this kingdom as soon as possible. Therefore,

[01:05:20] like the Mormons in Utah, they established such as Zion and Westphalia. Just like the Mormons summoned people to the desert, they called all those who wanted to avoid judgment when the Lord came to gather in the city of Münster. And as the Mormons do now,

[01:05:36] they armed groups for the defense and expansion of the kingdom who were occasionally successful and just as frequently defeated as the Mormons themselves are. They introduced, like the Mormons, polygamy, as it was called after the example of Abraham and according to the teachings of the Scriptures.

[01:05:56] And they finished by destroying by the neighboring princes without the Lord appearing in their day, which they promised each other would take place in the near future, just as the Mormons do now 300 years later. They promise and even threaten it. But just as Peter tried

[01:06:14] in vain to prevent the Lord from allowing himself to be crucified, Matthew 16, 21-23. Driven among other things by the fear that if the Lord were to die on the cross, his disciples would also suffer the same fate. It is equally useless for us to dream of

[01:06:32] escaping, whether by a journey to Utah or even to the moon. The necessity of passing through death into life. It is not just directly contradictory to the testimony of the Scriptures and therefore impossible to dream of such a thing regardless of how desirable

[01:06:48] it may possibly seem to us in the moment. But such fantasies are highly destructive to the development of a Christian life to the point when they become completely assimilated and dominant of making it impossible and replacing it with a kind of mortal fulfillment of the same expectations

[01:07:06] in which individual leaders take the place of the not yet visibly revealed savior and a comfortable mortal life actually replaces the renewal of paradise and we are removed from the actual impending kingdom of God on the perfected earth. Where these fantasies reign, we always encounter not just unchristian

[01:07:26] but even the anti-christian figure. This leader who is hostile to Christianity and perverts and corrupts its nature. A spiritual leader who is also by virtue of his spiritual position a powerful man of the world. A pope such as there is in Rome or a president of the kingdom

[01:07:44] of God such as exists in Utah. In the real kingdom of God on earth namely in the history of the people of Israel and in every Christian community worthy of the name, the offices of prophets, priests and kings or whatever the equivalent positions are called in each place

[01:08:02] are as a rule separate and divided among different people. This is so that the priests and kings are never entrusted to the same person. By contrast, in the perfect kingdom of God all three are united in the one true anointed one eternal prophet, priest

[01:08:20] and king for the entire race of men, Jesus Christ. It is to be noted, however that until he comes in a cloud to judge the world, he will not establish his kingship by worldly strength for his kingdom is not of this world. Therefore in every circle in which

[01:08:38] the attempt is made to unite these offices in anyone other than him even in the existence of the same and the rule as a mild and gentle as possible apostasy and tyranny are fundamentally present. This is perhaps most wildly and violently true when the emperor, king or supreme

[01:08:58] worldly ruler also dictates the worship, faith and doctrine of the church as you see in the Roman Empire or Russia or Turkey. But the situation that is most insidious and best suited to seducing and deceiving the unenlightened arises when the prophet and priest

[01:09:16] i.e. the man who speaks as the messenger of God and in whose society one seeks the remission of sins is also the worldly leader and one whom it is perhaps been revealed that none can be saved who does not contribute to the fund

[01:09:32] with which he by revelation builds temples under his own control or who sees by the spirit who is to be condemned and carries out the judgment with steel and fire as is often the case with the Pope in Rome and now the president of the Mormons.

[01:09:50] And in such spiritual temporal kingdoms one does not await the Lord's second coming since he literally will reveal himself openly and outwardly and claim his dominion in which his followers will inherit and possess the earth. And there on earth people rush to possess it

[01:10:06] and will crave its enjoyments. There, even before the resurrection of the dead, a sham kingdom of Christ is established which will also be of the world. There its members fight with worldly weapons in opposition to the word of the Lord. And there they fulfill two other

[01:10:24] prophecies of the Lord concerning those who stray. First, that they will perish by the sword because they wield swords themselves. That their stimulated earthly kingdoms of Christ will perish in blood and misery. And they will in their destruction take with them all of the temporal happiness

[01:10:42] of people who instead sought and waited elsewhere on earth. Moreover, if they will not be warmed by this and return in repentance to his kingdom that is not of this world but is, like him, homeless and defenseless, frequently mocked and despised in this world to the holy

[01:11:00] universal church, they will ultimately share the fate of the world which is to perish. But we must not dare to imagine that the matter is at an end here. We must never forget to remind our listeners and ourselves that we have, with all such demonstrations

[01:11:18] and arguments tonight, only reached the courtyards of the matter. That is as far as we can proceed with all such reason and proofs. But then we must reach an eternal decision that we both can and must decide to believe in him unconditionally and entrust

[01:11:34] ourselves to him regardless of how murky, even incredible the things he asks us to believe may seem to our human intellect, or how heavy and unbearable the things he requires of us may seem to our hearts and therefore I cannot close this meeting without such a declaration.

[01:11:52] I have raised arguments that testify to the authenticity of our Christianity and I have seriously discussed and refuted that which has apparently been stated against it here. And while I have had fun with some of the nonsense that could be found amidst the objection

[01:12:10] and was too unfounded to be treated seriously, but both the seriousness and the laughs will only be of real and lasting benefit to us if we, in rejecting this new heresy that revives and redoubles old delusions by pointing out some of the good old arguments

[01:12:26] that testify of the one original faith and baptism that are preserved even today in the Lord's Church, have felt ourselves challenged and strengthened in the desire to walk in this faith and this baptism. Regardless of how much of the true Church's teachings seem either

[01:12:42] complex and strange, even unreasonable to our natural intellect, or are completely opposite our natural will with all that follows it, if we do so we will go further and further toward and into the one perfect, eternally decisive proof of the truth of our faith

[01:13:00] and the validity of our baptism which cannot be proven or judged by human intellect and reason, but which the faithful have in themselves and for themselves, and which can precisely therefore not be touched, let alone shaken, by any victory that other more refined and

[01:13:16] better dressed heretics might possibly ever try to win us over with. These heresies will never defeat those who preach the original, unchanged Christianity in all of its simplicity. The presence of the Spirit in us with light and life, with reproof and comfort, with righteousness and peace and joy,

[01:13:34] for which reason He descends over and through which He is in those who are initiated into His temple through faith and baptism. All this is not alone the decisive proof of our Christianity, our faith, our baptism, our Church, but rather the acceptance, possession and application of Christianity's

[01:13:54] divine abundance, without which we would be just as poorly situated in time and eternity, whether we were otherwise able to silence all those who speak against it, or if we were struck dumb by the first opposition. It is there that John states,

[01:14:10] He that believes on the Son of God has the witness in himself, and this is the record that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. Christianity is a rebirth, a renewal of our fallen nature to its original glory

[01:14:26] and therefore also of the intellect to the correct recognition of the truth. If we, therefore by means of faith and the Church, live righteously and sincerely accept the Word of God, the content of the same will necessarily reveal itself more and more as agreeing with,

[01:14:44] and would gradually become, as it were transparent for, the reborn reason in the community of believers so that the revealed secret that is the testimony of Christ can be the object of our gradually more clear and true understanding, yet even the entire Church here below will never reach

[01:15:02] absolute insight, but will long for and strive for the sight of it face to face. Let us therefore, in consequence of today's debate, make an earnest attempt to undertake this lifelong trial of the truthfulness of our Christianity. If we do so, I know in my conscience that no

[01:15:20] false doctrine will ever be too powerful for us, nor will this meeting have been in vain and cause us regret here or in the future. Just as an afterthought, it's really interesting. One of the points he made was just how anytime you see cults spreading throughout

[01:15:47] the world, you'll see that this desire, this deep implanted movement in the group to build something on this earth. They take their eyes off of Christ. They take their eyes off of heaven, and they take all their focus on the things happening on the ground.

[01:16:03] There's lots of different things that he says throughout this sermon, but I just thought that was interesting. I'm doing a research for a deep dive on the Taiping Rebellion, and you see it happening there. You just see it happening in a lot of different places,

[01:16:13] and it's just something to remind ourselves that we have to keep our eyes on Christ. Yeah, there's a lot of things that he points out in the beginning too that are just kind of funny about Mormons, some of the weird

[01:16:21] things they believe out there. But at the end of the day, sadly, Mormons were very successful. Again, 17,000 people in Denmark moved to Utah to be Mormons. That doesn't include the ones that were in Denmark that stayed. This movement moved around the world, and there are

[01:16:35] millions and millions of people who believe in this today. And even though it sounds silly, and even though it may be kind of like ha-ha, who would believe that? Apparently millions of people would. And so we need to be serious about answering these groups that

[01:16:47] are in our midst. It's not just Mormons. There are many of them. They're out there. They're trying to latch people into their movement, and as Christians, we need to be bold like Peter Kierkegaard here, and sharing the faith, and defending the faith, and having these conversations

[01:16:59] right out there when we can. You know, get that opportunity where you can. You never know how the Lord may use it. This sermon was read by Nick Garland. Nick Garland is a music pastor at Berean Bible Church in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. He has produced two independent albums

[01:17:21] titled All Generations and Crooked Hill Chiasm. If you're looking for it online, it's pronounced the same way as a chiastic structure of Old Testament works. And you can find both of them on Spotify or wherever you listen to music. He lives

[01:17:35] in a small town near the church with his wife, Stephanie, where they homeschool their four children. Elise and I actually got to meet Nick over the summer when we were in the States. He's an awesome guy, very nice. He took us to

[01:17:45] like a coffee shop. We had bagels. It was really a fun time, and Nick is just really, really cool. So definitely go check out his music. And Nick, thank you for reading sermons for us. This is not the first one you've read for us, and we really,

[01:17:55] really appreciate it. If you're listening to this episode, we ask you just share it around. Tell other people about it. I feel like this is a really good episode with some really good history that a lot of people don't know. I mean, how many people have really spent

[01:18:07] time thinking about what were the Mormons doing in Denmark? And yet, I think it's a really interesting story, and how Peter Kierkegaard here just answers them. Just doing such an excellent job. Highly recommend. Go share that and tell others, hey, listen to this episode.

[01:18:21] You might find it really interesting. This is Troy and Elise, and this is Provide Thought.