Moriel Utah Mission – 2002

Dear Friends of Moriel:

Grace and Peace from our Lord Jesus Christ.

I can’t believe I have just returned from Utah and the yearly Moriel mission trip to the Mormons. Everything just went so quick and is over way to soon. I want to thank everyone who prayed for us while we were on this trip your prayers were answered in that some Mormons came to a relationship with the True and Living God. The God who sent His Son to die upon the cross and who laid out the heavens all by Himself, the God who knows no other God and is not man and does not change.

It is so hard for people to understand how these “good people” can be so
deceived to believe in a god whose son is the half brother of Satan and is just one of many gods and who just organized the elements of this planet and who worships another god and how he is not the same god of Christianity. The answer is very simple and at the same time complicated, deception by love. If your mother or father who loves you, who provided your with shelter, food, clothing and changed your diapers and took you to church and generally did well by you was to tell you that Mormonism is true, you would believe it. Never would you think that your parents are purposefully lying to you or they are trying to kill your soul, you would believe that Mormonism is true! I can tell you without a doubt that this is just the beginning of what we, who love Mormons, have to overcome to show them the Truth and the real Jesus.

The Mormons by appearances are “good people”. They are even convinced by their religion that they are good. Rarely will a Mormon admit that they are sinners. They may admit that they make mistakes, transgress a bit, or even screw up, but again they rarely admit or see themselves as sinners. Because they don’t see themselves as “sinners” they don’t have a driving need to be in a personal relationship with Jesus.

Mormonism teaches that one must test to see if Mormonism is true by praying a prayer found in the Book of Mormon in Moroni Chapter 10 verse 4: And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you by the power of the Holy Ghost. As you can see the language is very familiar, the Eternal Father, Jesus, name of Christ, truth, etc” ¦ but isn’t that why the scriptures tells us that there is another Jesus and another Spirit and anther gospel in 2 Corinthians 11:3-4.

So what happens when one prays for this other Jesus from the book of Mormon? A demon imitating the Holy Spirit takes over the person’s spirit and takes up residence within the person. I must state that this spiritual event does not always take place the first time the prayer is offered (by God’s mercy) or even after multiple times that the prayer has been offered as Mormons and ex-Mormons have confessed to me. But nonetheless this can and does take place in the lives of millions of Mormons and any Mormon who has a “witness” will tell you that the “Holy Spirit” has confirmed with signs (most often called a burning in the bosom) and has told them that the Book of Mormon and that the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints is true and Joseph Smith is a prophet of God. The Mormon who has this “witness” will confirm this with their testimony to you verbally, repeating what they heard from the spirit within them. This is called their testimony. It must be stated that, and this is important, that the Mormon in no way believes this to be anything other then the one true Holy Spirit and the one true God. This spirit will continue to produce feelings within the Mormon, even producing what some have described as “waves of liquid fire.” I don’t want in any way to diminish this feeling or say it is just a figment of one’s imagination, it is a real spiritual experience. It is an experience that they hang their salvation on. But then this is Satan’s ultimate deception isn’t it, a feeling that something is right instead of God’s Truth, The Word?

So what are we to do to help these deceived people? We are to prepare ourselves for war! Ephesians Chapter 6 tells us of the various pieces of amour we are to equip ourselves with: Truth, righteousness, the Gospel, faith, salvation and then we are to pray to open our mouths with boldness the mystery of the gospel. We pray against rulers and powers and against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places, for we see that our warfare is not against these people but against the force and ruler that possesses their souls and have placed them into the hands of the devil, our adversary. We are also to send missionaries to these people, missionaries who are armed with the Truth of Jesus Christ who can unbind these people from the spirit who binds and holds them by the Spirit of Jesus and His Word. We are to prepare ourselves not only with the gospel but also with a language that they understand. If you were to go to another culture you would want to prepare yourself as best as you can in order to witness to them. You would learn what they believe and why they believe it and their language and the meaning of their words in order to explain the gospel and to undo the deception that they are in and that will kill their souls. So many times in the scriptures we see Paul, Peter, John writing to undo error in order to teach us truth. In Colossians, Paul takes on philosophy, legalism, mystical teaching, asceticism and then concludes with a caution to keep alert and pray that God will open a door to us that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ.

The Mormons really believe they have the truth, but in reality they possess a lie and the lie possesses them. The Mormon lives in a grace that teaches them that by their works they are exalted to become a god. Mormonism teaches that one has to become perfect in this life and then one will live with their heavenly father forever. It is this point where we can sling the rock and hit their most vulnerable spot, the spot that brings down this giant in their life and then we can plunder Mormonism and take these people for the Kingdom of God. I urge all our Moriel friends to pray for these wonderful people and to equip themselves with the Truth in order that we might turn them from darkness to light, from the kingdom of Satan to the Kingdom of God. See “Are You Living the Celestial Law” on the website or in the Moriel Quarterly #8 for a full explanation on how to witness to these Mormons using their own sword against Mormonism.

Next year, Lord willing I intend to return to Utah and again plunder their kingdom and take these treasures and present them to the Lord, Jesus Christ, The One and True Living God. I would also ask that you would prayerfully consider coming to Utah with us and become part of this great outreach.

Moriel Ministries Utah Mission Trip To The Mormons 2002 Highlights

This year we had four new Missionaries join last year’s missionaries. Joining us this year, were Kelly Mallon (age 15), Leslie McCartney (age 14) and my nephew David Danehower (age 10) {he is to be baptized on August 4, 2002. I am so proud of him, and Krista Mallon (no age, just that she is Kelly’s mom). Our return missionaries were Jason Catizone, Bethany Egan, Edmund Rollett, my mom and dad (Jean and David Lister), me and a 100 plus other friends from various churches around the United States.

I must say that I am very pleased and blessed with the way that the Lord answered my prayer that we would be given a spirit of boldness as we witness to the Mormons. Leslie is a very shy young lady, rarely speaking, even among friends, but when she was under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, watch out. One incident comes to mind, when Leslie was talking to a group of young people an older man around 40 years of age and standing an imposing 6 foot 4 inches tall towered over Leslie at 4 foot 10 inches. He interjected himself into the conversation and tried to change the subject. But Leslie turn to him, looking almost straight up politely said, “That is not even on subject, if you want to be in this conversation you have to stay on subject.” The man’s demeanor fell and his head slumped and he walked away. Leslie then turned back and started working with these young people again. It should be stated that Mormons will often try and change the subject in order to get you off point and prevent you from making headway with your topic and the people you are talking with and witnessing to, this is called a rabbit trail.

Kelly is a wonderful young lady and God used her richly to bless a young Mormon man that has ADD. She took him aside and patiently told him the differences between Mormonism and Christianity. You could see she was getting through to him and the effect in his eyes with moisture welling up. Kelly is the last person you would ever expect to lead and control a group discussion on Mormonism. But as she allowed herself to be guided and used by the Holy Spirit she did just that, she witness to group after group. She controlled and guided the conversations to where she needed to go and got the points across she needed to make and did this all with gentleness and respect.

My nephew, David, while young, was a missionary. He asked me if he could “get one of those jobs handing out those tracts.” I told him I would check and let him know and when I got some tracts from the local Christian Pastor for him to hand out; he was so excited. He did a great job handing them out. He was very polite and quiet as he joined groups to listen in on the conversation with Mormons.

At one point he even made a good point to the group. I don’t believe that someone can be to young to be a witness for Christ. I know there is some “job” they can used to accomplish God’s will. This year two people came to know the Lord and we were all so happy to celebrate this joyous event. Two may not seem like a lot but scriptures tells us that when one comes to know the Lord all the angels of heaven rejoice. Beside these two people that left Mormonism thousands of Mormon were witnessed to and many, many seeds of Truth were planted. Our prayer for these seeds is that God will send another to water and another to till the soil and we know God will give the increase. We will see, on that glorious resurrection day, all the fruit of this labor of love.

I could go on and on about this wonderful mission trip and all the things we did and all the people we saw and spoke to but it would fill a book. But I would encourage each of you to prayerfully consider joining us during the third and fourth week of next June on our mission trip to the Mormons. If this seems like something you would be interested in we have many video tapes here at Moriel Ministries and many articles on our website to equip you to witness to the Mormons.

The videotapes I mentioned are not currently offered though our catalogue but through individual inquires and at very low cost. I can be contacted at [email protected] if you would like information on next year’s mission to the Mormons. I can also be contacted through the American Moriel Ministries address. Please come next year, the Mormons need to hear about the Truth of Jesus Christ.

In Peace,
David E. Lister