Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, Heavenly Father, we thank you and praise you for all that you have done for us. 

 WvstarwolfOAMCounselor says, yes Lord

parepidemos_oam_pastor says, Yes, amen

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, Tonight as we study more about the false beliefs, help us to see more of your truth and to learn more of the importance of truth in our lives.

 WvstarwolfOAMCounselor says, yes Jesus guide and lead us

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, Guide us in all we do, Lord, and open our hearts and minds to what you would have us learn.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, We ask this in the precious name of Jesus, amen.

 WvstarwolfOAMCounselor says, Amen

parepidemos_oam_pastor says, Amen

 godslittlegirl22 says, Amen

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, A little change of plans from what I told you, Doug.

parepidemos_oam_pastor says, Oh, ok Deb

  Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, Tonight we're going to talk about Mormons instead of JW's.

parepidemos_oam_pastor says, Ok, good Deb.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, Last week we talked about a group called the Interfaith Alliance.

parepidemos_oam_pastor says, much of word/faith comes from mormon concepts

parepidemos_oam_pastor says, will shush

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, This group takes Christianity and tries to melt it in with all other kinds of religions.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, This is not so far off from what the Mormon religion has done.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, Once upon a time.....

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, there were trillions of planets ruled by an unknown number of gods.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, One of these gods and one of his goddess wives conceived a spirit-child and named him Elohim.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, Through obedience to Mormon teachings (where these originally came from, no one knows), Elohim arrived at godhood, after going through the process of dying and being resurrected.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, Elohim and his goddess wives took up residence on a planet near the star Kolob, where they produced billions of spirit-children.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, Seeing a need to give his spirit-children physical bodies, Elohim called a meeting of the Council of Gods to see what could be done about this.

parepidemos_oam_pastor says, By the way, Elohim is Hebrew for God, as in the beginning, God (Elohim) created the heavens and earth.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, The Council of Gods decided to create Planet Earth, where these spirit-children could take human form and learn what was good and what was evil.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, shhhhhh, Doug. 

Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, Because of the nature of this learning process, these spirit-children on Earth would need to have a savior to provide them with the way to attain their eventual godhood. 

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, The Council asked for volunteers to be the savior of this new world.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, Two of Elohim's spirit-children vied for this position.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, Lucifer proposed that he would become the savior of the Earth by forcing all humans to become gods.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, His brother Jesus, however, gave his plan of becoming the savior by giving people a coice about whether they wanted to become gods or not.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, coice=choice

parepidemos_oam_pastor says, I read typos well

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, The Council decided Jesus had the better plan and appointed him to become the savior of the planet Earth.

 godslittlegirl22 says, u make typos better than u read them

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, And so goes the story of Mormonism.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, lol, Hailey

 godslittlegirl22 says,

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, Some of the words you see in this story are also words used in the Bible.

parepidemos_oam_pastor says, >(

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, Lucifer is mentioned and so is Jesus.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, Also, as Doug pointed out ahead of schedule, the name Elohim is the name used in the Old Testament for God.

parepidemos_oam_pastor says, lol

 godslittlegirl22 says, lol Chalk

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, Tonight we're going to use the Mormon beliefs to learn about defining terms.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, Since nobody in here knows any French (good thing Bella's not here!), let me teach you a little French as an illustration.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, Did you all know that the word for God in French is grenouille?

 WvstarwolfOAMCounselor says, no I didn't

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, I was beginning to wonder if anyone was still there. 

 WvstarwolfOAMCounselor says, I am

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, Now, since I am supposedly an authority on French, it would be very natural for people to believe me when I make that statement.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, But you wouldn't have any way of knowing what I was saying was true or not unless you match it up with a dictionary.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, (Or someone who really does know French.) 

 godslittlegirl22 says, my spanish teacher

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, The fact is, though, that the word grenouille doesn't really mean God at all...it means frog.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, It would be easy for me to tell you many things that were not necessarily true and you might believe me...if you didn't check out what I was saying.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, This is one way that languages can have a difficulty.

parepidemos_oam_pastor says, checks out Deb's words

 WvstarwolfOAMCounselor says, getting the drift

Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, Sometimes the supposed authority isn't as much of an authority as they think they are.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, Joseph Smith became an authority, supposedly, by seeing God in person and having Him give some revelation to him.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, Joseph Smith was the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, otherwise known as Mormons.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, He had several visions, one of which was God the Father, God the Son and .....brain lapse...can't remember right off on this one.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, But in his vision, he was told some special things that no one else on earth had ever heard.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, This appeared, to many people, to put Joseph Smith up on a pedestal as an authority on this information.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, But the problem was that Joseph Smith was not a reliable authority and the "words" he told to people were not truthful.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, The story I put up above is what the Mormon Church believes.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, Or at least, what Joseph Smith handed down to them to believe.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, It is found in one of his writings called the Pearl of Great Price, specifically, I believe the portion of it is called the Book of Abraham.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, The sad thing is, as is with most false teachings, most Mormons don't know anything at all about the story I told you.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, Many of them would be shocked to hear that their church believes in this.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, Why is there a difference?

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, It's because there are different levels of "understanding" in the Mormon church.  Some people are more advanced in their spiritual knowledge and they know more of the "secrets" than others.

 WvstarwolfOAMCounselor says, just like priests in a catholic church?

 WvstarwolfOAMCounselor says, or bishops?

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, In a way, yes.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, Most Catholics do not know what their church teaches either.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, Most of you have heard of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir....well, this comes out of the Mormon Tabernacle, which is a temple in Salt Lake City.

parepidemos_oam_pastor says, Which is good in some ways

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, A Mormon temple is a place where only the most devout Mormons are allowed to enter.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, By the time they make it there, they are so faithful to Mormon teachings that they will believe about anything the church puts before them.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, But the average, everyday Mormon really doesn't know much about what their church believes.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, And here is where we go back to the language issue.....

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, You saw that they used the words Jesus, Lucifer and Elohim, just like is used in the Bible.

parepidemos_oam_pastor says, yes

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, But the problem is, what these words refer to are not the same as what we think of when we use the terms.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, For instance, if I say I saw an elephant this afternoon....you would have one picture in your mind of what I was talking about.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, Now, what happens to the picture in your mind when I start to describe my elephant as two foot high, black, with six legs and a tiny snout.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, What would be your response?

 godslittlegirl22 says, theres an english vocab word for that lol we just studied it in class monday

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, What is it, Hailey?

godslittlegirl22 says, i forget lol

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, lol

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, The problem is that what I just described is not an elephant at all.

 mrs_pare says, lol

parepidemos_oam_pastor says, Been drinking again Deb?

 godslittlegirl22 says,  metaphor

 godslittlegirl22 says, thats it!!!!!

 godslittlegirl22 says, u say He is a pig

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, And this is the problem we have with many pseudo-Christian groups.....they may use the same words, but what they MEAN by those words is not what we mean at all.

 godslittlegirl22 says, meaning eats alot but he isnt a literal pig lol

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, Not quite a metaphor...but just a different idea of what we mean by this word.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, Pseudo is the word that means "false".

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, And the reason I call the Mormons pseudo-Christian is because they may look like Christian on the outside, but once you start investigating what they mean by these words, you see that they are not Christian at all.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, Looking at the story I told you earlier, you can see that the idea the Mormons have of who Lucifer is has nothing to do with the Biblical Lucifer.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, The Mormon Lucifer is Jesus' brother.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, The Biblical Lucifer is Jesus' creation.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, The Mormon Elohim is one of many gods.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, The Biblical Elohim is the one and ONLY God.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, This is why, whenever we talk to people about God, the VERY FIRST thing we have to do is to define our terms.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, When someone says they are a Christian, ask them what they mean about that.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, Never assume they mean what you think they mean.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, It used to be that when someone said they were a Christian, they meant the same thing as the majority of Christianity.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, But nowadays, it is not at all like that.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, In fact, pretty much the opposite is true.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, Last week we saw that there was a pastor who called himself a Christian, but yet he was part of an Interfaith Alliance that goes against fundamental Christianity.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, And if you talk to Mormons, they will tell you that they are Christians.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, But this is where we have to stop and start asking questions.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, One of the best things you can do when talking to someone else about their religion is to ask them questions and then observe carefully what they have to say.

parepidemos_oam_pastor says, Divisive, rude and arrogant questions.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, As you go through this next week, look carefully at what people say.....learn to read between the lines and see, not necessarily what they are saying, but what they are meaning.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, When you talk to someone about God, ask them what they think God is like.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, When they say they know who Jesus is, ask them who they think He is.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, Compare what they say with what the Bible says about God and Jesus.  That is the only way to find out for sure what they really do MEAN.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, People can SAY anything, but it's what they really MEAN that is important.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, Be a detective this week and make sure you make people define their terms so you know exactly what it is they believe...and exactly who it is they believe in.

 Chalkbrd_oam_counselor says, *** the end ***