Apologetics

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The Cursed Cross of Christ
Ed Decker



The one thing you will never see on any Mormon Church
or Temple is a Cross.
Their cross is a cursed thing.

They have no understanding why true Christians would stand before the cross in awe of Christ's redemptive gift. They see no personal salvation in it. They believe that His death on Calvary gave all mankind physical resurrection. They believe that all Mormons will be judged for their own works, their own righteousness.

This is necessary so that they might earn their personal salvation, hopefully even godhood. I know it sounds like strange doctrine, but I suggest that you read an excerpt from the writings of one of their own apostles, Milton R. Hunter, at: http://saintsalive.com/index.php/resourcelibrary/mormonism/297-lds-official-qplan-of-salvationq

Let me go back a few years and fill you in on the background for this article.

Some years ago, I was ministering in Hawaii, with my friend Tom Bauer, the founder of Surfing the Nations. We were in front of the Hawaii Temple, just a short shuttle ride from the Polynesian Cultural Center, also owned and operated by the Mormon Church. The BYU Hawaii campus is also in that neighborhood. Many of the role-playing workers at the Center are BYU students from the Pacific islands.

We were handing out a small ministry tract called, “Questions for your Temple Tour.” You can read and/or download a copy of the tract here at: http://saintsalive.com/index.php/resourcelibrary/mormonism/55-questions-for-your-temple-tour

It points out the very non-Christian nature of the LDS temples and we gave them to the people who were visiting the Cultural Center who had accepted an invitation to also visit the LDS temple nearby.

When the LDS officials inside the temple realized that we were messing up their tours when they stopped the shuttle in front of the temple to let the people out, they opened a side gate and began driving the shuttle onto LDS property.

So we just went down the street and ran along both sides of the slow moving shuttles. In doing this, we were able to get the tract into every hand before they reached the property gate.

After a few more shuttles came down our path and while we stood just outside the temple property line, An LDS official came running out, waving his arms in the air and screaming, “When are you going to stop persecuting us?”

By then, a small crowd had gathered. I responded just as loud, “When you take down that Moroni statue and replace it with a Cross.”
He screamed out, “We Curse the Cross.!”

I responded, “We Preach the Cross!”

He yelled back, “You preach foolishness!”

I could not believe he had just said that. I thought, “Has this man ever read the Bible? I probably smiled at the lead-in he had just given me.
I responded, “Sir, you call it foolishness, because you are lost and perishing, but we preach it because to us who are saved, it is the power of God manifest to mankind.”

With a wild look, he stared at the people gathered around him now and raced back into the temple.

The bible says it like this: “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.” 1 Corinthians 1:18

Someone later said that he was the Hawaii temple president, called to the temple when we first arrived. LDS temple presidents have the responsibility to oversee both the administrative and spiritual affairs of the temple to which they have been assigned.

Dear readers, it is such a tragic thing to see these deceived and spiritually lost Mormon people trust in their own works to gain favor with God. Instead of being taught the joyous gift of the cross, their false leaders pound into them the need for their own righteousness and works instead of His righteousness and His work done once and for all at the Cross.

They are reviewed each year by local leaders and must account for their works in order to earn and maintain their temple recommends. If they are not worthy enough, until they earn back their worthiness, they are denied entrance to that most holy place were they learn the secret signs and hand clasps to enter the LDS Celestial Kingdom and become gods and goddesses. Those who have already been through the temple and taken out their own “endowments” may not return to do those “vicarious works for the dead.”

They are truly lost to God, just as were the Jews of whom Paul said,

“Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. 2 For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. 3 For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. 4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. Romans 10

One has to wonder how they can carry their bibles into church every week and totally miss the message of the cross. It speaks out throughout the Word.


THE BLOOD OF THE CROSS

We are justified by Christ’s blood (Rom. 5:8-11).
Jesus suffered, for the just for the unjust (1 Pet. 3:18).
Glory only in the cross (Gal. 6:14).
Preach specifically the cross (1 Cor. 2:2).
We are forgiven in the cross (Col. 2:13-14).
Redemption is through his blood (Eph. 1:7).
He bore our sins on the tree (1 Peter 2:24).
Jesus’ precious blood (1 Pet. 1:18-19).
Boldness by the blood (Heb. 10:19).
Enemies of the cross are destroyed (Phil. 3:18-19).
Jesus blood cleanses from all sin (1 John 1:7).
The gospel is defined with the cross (1 Cor. 15:1-4).
We must preach Christ crucified (1 Cor. 1:23).
Here is God’s power for salvation (Rom. 1:16).
The cross is foolish to the lost (1 Cor. 1:17-18).
We are brought to God by the cross (Eph. 2:13-16).
Our peace with God is by the cross (Col. 1:20).
Eternal life is only by Jesus (John 14:6; Acts 4:12).

They may deny its power, but the cross still calls out to them. They will be judged by their denial of its redemptive power.

And it is not just the Mormons who are lost to Christ in their own works. The Christian Church is full of those who justify their right standing with God through their good works.

The politically correct, seeker friendly churches who measure their good deeds in the community as tickets to heaven will be shocked to find out in eternity that they have side-stepped the wondrous cross of Christ and walked the wide path of humanism instead of the narrow road of righteousness in Him who shed His blood for them at the cross.

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