Michigan Camp Meeting 2023: The Boldness of the Cross

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

From Mormonism to Adventism

Cody Francis

A Pivotal Year

My Journey Out of Mormonism

A Counterfeit Movement

The Confusion of Mormonism

Reaching Mormons

You are about to enjoy a presentation recorded at the 2023 Michigan Conference Camp Meeting held at Cedar Lake, Michigan.

We pray that the Lord will bless you as you listen.

Father in heaven, we're grateful for the privilege and the opportunity that we have to know you.

Lord, we just thank you that you have called us each out of darkness and into your marvelous light.

We pray you will be with us now as we continue to think of how we can reach our friends in other faiths.

All right, just kind of a review of what we have been looking at and then we'll get into our subject that we have for today.

And so we looked at kind of the pivotal year, so what was taking place in 1844 in the secular world and in the religious world in particular.

So we find a lot of religious developments taking place right around 1844.

You have Mormonism, Joseph Smith was killed in 1844, the Great Awakening took place, the Great Disappointment rather took place then, the spiritualism was really starting to come up right during that time.

And there's others that we could talk about as well.

But it was a cluster of events that took place around 1844 because prophecy predicted that God was going to be working in a special way right around that time, and the devil was trying to obscure that, I believe, and raise up counterfeit movements.

I shared about my journey and my family's experience as we left the Latter-day Saint movement and came into Adventism, at least my mother and I and some of my siblings.

And then we looked at how Mormonism is really a counterfeit to, I believe, a counterfeit to the Adventist movement, to the remnant church of Bible prophecy.

And you see some similarities there, you see a lot of differences too, of course, but you see a similar time frame of development that was taking place, and then you also see some uniqueness as well, with the identity of a prophet, of a health message, a message on stewardship, and various things like that.

And then yesterday we looked at some of the reasons why Joseph Smith and his writings really don't align with Scripture.

We have a very solid evidence for the Bible, for the Word of God, and yet when we apply those same tests to the Book of Mormon and the other writings of Joseph Smith, we see lack of internal consistency, we see that there's no manuscript evidence, very little outside evidence that you can look at, and just a complete lack of any supporting details from archaeology or anything like that.

And all of this is to help us have a better understanding of how our friends in the Mormon movement, how they think, And as we understand how they think and kind of what their belief system is, that will hopefully help us to be better prepared to share with them when we have the opportunity.

And the great thing about our Mormon friends is they are proactive about sharing with us, right?

And because they're proactive about sharing with us, that gives us even greater opportunity to share with them.

And so, not that the greatest, probably, witnessing opportunities are when the missionaries come to the door, although certainly we want to take advantage of that and hope that we can plant seeds.

It's the missionary movement that they're in, the commitment that they make is very regimented, and so it would be difficult during that time for them to grasp some of the truths that we know, but hopefully seeds can be planted.

But then there are friends that we have, relatives perhaps, I have relatives, but friends or neighbors that are associated with the Latter-day Saint movement, and that you may be able to develop a long-term relationship with them to be able to share with them.

Because really, it is a long-term relationship.

Like, I mean, many people, if they have another church, they have their own social group.

But in Mormonism, it's a little bit different than that.

It is a unique social group, and it is a—they're not afraid to be different.

Everybody looks upon them as different, and so there's a different social structure, and it is very much a family environment, so it's much more difficult and it's much more of a long-term situation for them.

And so we're looking specifically today at reaching Mormons, and I hope that we'll have some time as we near the end for any questions that you might have over anything that we've covered.

Not that I can guarantee I have any answers, but we can certainly discuss and share what we might be able to visit about.

But I want to look at, as I mentioned, reaching Mormons.

And number 1, if we're going to reach Mormons, really it is essential that we simply become their friends.

So you are not going to, in fact, the entire paradigm of how they think is different from how we think in our religious understanding.

To us, if the Bible says it, we believe it, and that settles it, right?

And so if we have an understanding from the Bible, then we can share with somebody from the Bible, and we expect that if the Bible says it, they should accept it, and they should be willing to follow it, because that's how we think in our faith.

Jesus said, man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

And so that is a correct basis and understanding, But our friends in the Mormon church do not think that way.

There is, it is not like you can share with them Exodus 20, 8 to 11, and expect that that's going to convince them to start keeping the Sabbath.

Because their source of authority is different.

It's a book that God spoke through, but it's a flawed book.

And their books, their sources of authority are Joseph Smith's writings.

And so to try to just share a Bible verse with and expect them to make a decision on that is probably not going to work very well.

Everyone has a different experience, and that may be how somebody could be reached, because everyone's an individual.

But generally speaking, it's going to be a long-term relationship with them.

You're going to need to become their friend so that you can have an influence with them, so that you can see, they can see your beliefs as they're lived out, and hopefully they can develop confidence in you.

And there are, there are conflicts, even though we don't know about them, there are conflicts in the Latter-day Saint movement as well.

The church that I was a part of in the 80s, when I was there in the early 90s, they were raising funds for building their first temple, which was in Independence, Missouri, and that's since they've completed that many years ago by now.

But they were raising funds for that, but there were also some issues that were going on.

There was discussions about women in the priesthood, there were other issues that were taking place in the church, and there were those that were conflicted over some of these things.

And so when there's conflict going on in the church, that's an opportunity as well to be able to share biblical principles.

And I have some that we used to go to church with that are in some of these challenging situations and those are opportunities.

Share some things from the Bible with them.

Because you want them to see your faith and your experience with the Bible.

And then as they can see your experience with the Bible, it can help them to deepen their walk, their relationship with the Lord through the Bible as well.

They're good people, And they're people that need the Lord just like anybody else.

And so see how you can connect with them.

And that is, as I've shared with my experience, it was through basically 10 plus years of friendship that it took before really we started to make decisions.

And so it can be, as I mentioned, long-term.

But long-term friendships can develop into eternal friendships as well, which is the goal, right?

So become their friends, don't attack their beliefs.

When we look, particularly at what we looked at yesterday, and we look at the 0 evidence from any outside sources for the Book of Mormon, it's easy to say, well, this is ridiculous.

But that's not a way that's going to be effective in reaching them, because they do believe it.

And many times they haven't even recognized some of the inconsistencies in it.

I never saw some of the inconsistencies in it.

I never realized there was a lack of archaeological evidence, really, when you looked at it.

We were told, well, look at the Mayan temples.

These were built by the Nephites and those that came over in the storyline of the Book of Mormon.

And so we were looking at things like that.

There were legends about white people coming here to the Americas, and so we would capitalize on those as legends that were showing that Jesus had come like Joseph Smith had said.

So there's things that you do think about and that you do latch onto, and that is what you—that's your paradigm.

By the way, both of these things and probably just about anything we're going to say is going to hold true for virtually any group that you're trying to reach.

So it's generally not a good idea if you're witnessing to a Catholic to begin with, did you know the Pope's the Antichrist?

Generally not going to be very effective.

When I was still in the, when we were still, when we hadn't even started studying Adventism yet, so we were still going to the Mormon movement, and our friends, they were there, we were just, it was a friendship visit, as they stayed in contact with us, and we stayed in contact with them.

And so as they were there, they had my brother, who's 6 years younger than I am, And then they had a son that was of the similar age as my brother.

And I can remember my brother coming up to me 1 day and he said, Cody, my friend says that the devil wants you to go to church on Sunday.

I said, well, that's what they believe, but that's not what we believe, so it's okay.

And so, you know, he was probably trying to share, and there's nothing wrong with it.

Series

From Mormonism to Adventism

Reaching Mormons

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Cody Francis Weekend

Reaching Mormons

1h 4m

Creative Outreach for Everyday Life

05 Called to Serve II

57m

Prophetic Preaching and Persuasive Appeals for Decision

01 Why the Preaching of Appeals is Crucial

47m

The Three Angels' Messages

05 The Elevation of the Bishops and the Priesthood

58m

The Key to Finishing the Work

The Ultimate Rescue Operation, Part 2

1h 5m

Adventism: The Answer to Modern Atheism

05 Answering the Atheist: The Top 5 Objections

1h 8m

Presenting Persuasive Appeals During Keys to Revelation

05 Presenting Christ Centered Appeals with Confidence

1h 1m

Presenting Persuasive Appeals During Keys to Revelation

03 The Holy Spirit Makes Appeals Appealing

58m

Effective Wholistic Witnessing Among Refugees

04 Effective Wholistic Witnessing Among Refugees

41m

Sharing the Three Angels’ Messages in 30 Seconds

01 Sharing the Three Angels’ Messages in 30 Seconds

1h 4m

The Three Angels' Message

07 The Fourth Angel’s Message

1h

Let My Pastors Go: 1844 to Heaven, Why So Long?

01 A God Ordained Truth: A Man-Made Method

50m

Sound Doctrine