Both Islam and Mormonism started because they didn’t respect what God had already revealed

 

 

Because one can see something wrong in the practice of Christianity, the way to fix it is not to start your own religion by writing a book, but to go back to the authority and pattern in the Scripture that exists and to bring about change from there.

 

Christianity already existed in Arabia in the early 7^th century when Islam began, and it already existed in revivalist America in the early 19^th century when Mormonism started.

 

Joseph Smith claimed he asked God to show him the true church. But instead of going back to the New Testament pattern for the true church, Joseph Smith made up a cock and bull story about translating gold plates the angel told him to dig up. And where are those gold plates so we can go and check Smith's story? Ah, er … they were taken back to heaven when Smith had done his translating!! How convenient!

 

Muhammed was troubled by the idolatry he saw in his people in Arabia, and also by the poor leadership he saw in the church that existed there. But again, if he had understood that what God wanted was in applying the New Testament that was already available, he wouldn't have made up this story about an angel revealing the new religion of Islam.

 

Even the way in which the Qurʾān was supposedly written should leave any reasonably intelligent person with huge doubts about the accurate transmission and preservation of the original.

 

Muhammed was illiterate, and so he dictated his claimed revelation to various people, and this was either written on bits of paper, or other material, or memorised by close friends, before the whole thing was finally collated. The New Testament, on the other hand, was inspired all the way – in the original revelation, and in the writing. Even where memory was a factor, the Holy Spirit supernaturally brought facts back to the memory of the writer.

 

Furthermore, the New Testament was confirmed as being of divine origin through signs and miracles that pointed the investigator back to God as the originator. You see this in Mark 16:15-20, with examples in Acts 2, 10 and 13.

In the conversion of the Governor of Cyprus, Paul's miracle helped convince the governor of Jesus' teaching. See Acts 13:6-12. Jesus himself said if you don't believe what I say, believe the miraculous works I do. See John 5:36 and 10:37-38. Simply offering, "Of course God wrote it! Who else could have?" as a proof, as both Muslims and Mormons do, won't convince those looking for real evidence that God is the author. Muhammed admitted that neither he nor his helpers performed any confirming miracles.

 

The Bible of course never asks this question because,

a) it is not a proof at all, and

b) the author of the New Testament knew that others would indeed write their own books for their new religions!!

 

The Old Testament had predicted that an end would come for prophecy by the time of the destruction of Jerusalem after the atonement late 1^st century.

 

"Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place. 25 Know therefore and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time. 26 And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing. And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war. Desolations are decreed. 27 And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator." Daniel 9:24-27

 

Therefore claims of God raising up new prophets, centuries after the fulfilment of Daniel 9, must be false. There are no later prophets, and there are no other divine Scriptures. The Bible is the complete and final revelation.

 

Authority in God's religion does not reside in churches, as the Roman Catholic church teaches, nor in certain individuals. Authority in the church resides in Christ who has all authority in heaven and on earth, Matthew 28:18; Ephesians 1:22-23; 1 Peter 3:22, and in the Scriptures God has given us.  The Scriptures do not bow to the church; the church must bow before the Scriptures.

 

if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth. 1 Timothy 3:15

 

The church neither authorises truth nor originates truth; it holds up the true word of God to the world. 2 Corinthians 4:1-13; Philippians 2:14-16; 1 Timothy 3:15. Nor does the church become the infallible interpreter of truth, 2 Peter 1:20-21, but has teachers who work hard to handle properly and faithfully what God has given us. 1 Corinthians 4:1-2; Colossians 1:25-29; 2 Timothy 2:14-15.  Whether Joseph Smith, Muhammed, the Pope, ourselves or anyone else: truth is found by going back to the word Jesus revealed in the beginning, John 16:13; 1 John 2:24, and building from there. Ephesians 4:14-16; Colossians 3:16-17; 2 Timothy 3:13-17; James 1:18-22; Jude 3.

 

David Hunter