Why is this second witness so crucial? The following illustration may help: How many straight lines can you draw through a single point on a piece of paper? The answer is infinite. The Bible is one witness of Jesus Christ the Book of Mormon is another. Paul taught, “In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established” ( 2 Corinthians 13:1). To help bring this oneness about, the Lord established a divine law of witnesses. This is not a condition the Lord desires, for the Apostle Paul declared that there is “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” ( Ephesians 4:5). If they interpreted it the same, they would be the same church. An honest, unbiased reading of the Book of Mormon will bring someone to the same conclusion as my great-great-grandfather, namely: “The devil could not have written it-it must be from God.”īut why is the Book of Mormon so essential if we already have the Bible to teach us about Jesus Christ? Have you ever wondered why there are so many Christian churches in the world today when they obtain their doctrines from essentially the same Bible? It is because they interpret the Bible differently. If the foregoing scriptures from the Book of Mormon teach us to worship and love and serve the Savior (which they do), how can they be from the devil? If so, he would be divided against himself and thus be destroying his own kingdom, the very condition the Savior said could not exist. Or these words of a prophet: “Come unto Christ, and be perfected in him” ( Moroni 10:32).Ĭould these statements from the Book of Mormon have possibly been authored by the evil one? After the Savior cast out certain devils, the Pharisees claimed that He did so “by Beelzebub the prince of the devils.” The Savior responded that such a conclusion was nonsensical: “Every kingdom,” He said, “divided against itself is brought to desolation and every … house divided against itself shall not stand.” And then His compelling climax: “And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself how shall then his kingdom stand?” ( Matthew 12:24–26 emphasis added). Or these words of a loving father to his sons: “And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation” ( Helaman 5:12). “Feast upon the words of Christ for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do” ( 2 Nephi 32:3). Ask yourself if the following scriptures from the Book of Mormon draw you closer to God or to the devil: For a moment I invite you to take a test that will help you determine the true nature of this book. Likewise, we must make a simple choice with the Book of Mormon: it is either of God or the devil. … But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. Lewis spoke of a similar dilemma faced by someone who must choose whether to accept or reject the Savior’s divinity-where there is likewise no middle ground: “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. If that story is true, then the Book of Mormon is holy scripture, just as it professes to be if not, it is a sophisticated but, nonetheless, diabolical hoax.Ĭ. S. Joseph Smith declared that an angel of God directed him to gold plates, which contained the writings of prophets in ancient America, and that he translated those plates by divine powers. It claims to be the word of God-every sentence, every verse, every page. This book does not merely claim to be a moral treatise or theological commentary or collection of insightful writings. It is either the word of God as professed, or it is a total fraud. That is the genius of the Book of Mormon-there is no middle ground. He then declared, “That book was either written by God or the devil, and I am going to find out who wrote it.” He read it through twice in the next 10 days and then declared, “The devil could not have written it-it must be from God.” 1 He opened it to the center and read a few pages. Years ago my great-great-grandfather picked up a copy of the Book of Mormon for the first time.
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