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 just so grateful that you have given us the privilege to be here at camp meeting.

We thank you for the opportunity to fellowship and to learn and grow together And we pray that you will be with us now as we study.

We ask that you will give us deeper insights.

I want to begin by looking in Deuteronomy chapter 8.

Deuteronomy chapter 8, there's a very familiar verse, but I believe it's a verse that is important for us as well, and for me individually as well, as I look at some of these things.

Deuteronomy, of course, is Moses when he is repeating and giving instructions to the children of Israel as they are about to enter the promised land.

And so we come to Deuteronomy 8 and let's read verses 2 and 3.

To humble you and test you to know what was in your heart whether you would keep his commandments or not.

So he humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord." Very beautiful words here Moses remembering here and he says, you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these 40 years in the wilderness.

Is it good for us to remember how the Lord has led us?

Each 1 of us have an experience, each 1 of us have a journey, and the Lord has led each and every 1 of us.

And we should remember how the Lord has led us in our lives.

Now here specifically he says, you shall remember that the Lord led you these 40 years.

And then he says, so that you would know that to humble you and to test you to know what was in your heart.

Interesting, God led the children of Israel these 40 years in the wilderness.

Another thing was to test them so that they would know what was in their hearts.

God knows what's in our hearts, doesn't he?

But we need help knowing what's in our hearts.

And so God puts us through various circumstances.

He leads us in different ways to help us to know what is actually in our hearts.

And so we need to learn from those experiences.

He led you these 40 years to humble you, to test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or no.

And then of course Jesus quotes verse 3 as well when he says, but man, well even before that, but that he might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.

God presents his word as an infallible guide for us.

And that is a major difference between Mormonism, the Latter Day Saint movement, and Christianity as a whole.

But I want to focus as I mentioned on my journey here and I need to go way back because some of the history that we talked about in order to understand my journey we need to look at some of that history again.

And so, my, not my personal, but my family's experience with Mormonism, at least as far as I can track back so far, begins in 1831.

Now if you remember 1831, obviously none of us remember 1831, but if you remember yesterday when we laid out a timeline of the development of Mormonism, we saw that the Book of Mormon was published in 1830.

The Church of Christ, which was what was first the Mormon Church, the Latter-day Saint movement was first organized as, was organized in 1830 as well.

And then in 1831, in Ohio, probably near the, I don't know exactly where, but the movement at that point was in Kirtland, Ohio, a man by the name of James Abraham Newberry was baptized as into the Latter Day Saint movement.

Now James Abraham Newberry was my 4 times great grandfather.

And so sometimes we talk about, well I'm a third generation or fourth generation or sixth generation Adventist.

When I was baptized I was something like a sixth generation Mormon if you would say.

Now obviously I'm not anymore, but he was the, he accepted that Mormon movement when there was about 600 Mormons.

So we talked about there were today, the Latter Day Saint church based in Utah is, has about 17 million.

Not all the way back to New York when Joseph Smith was having his revelations there in New York and where it began, but shortly thereafter.

When they moved to Ohio, there was a preacher that preached.

Now Mormonism, when you look at the history at this time, was also very closely connected.

There was a lot of spiritualistic manifestations that would take place.

Things like speaking in tongues, obviously prophesying was a major part of it as well.

And so, although this was before the charismatic movement, things like that were taking place during that time.

So James Newberry, and there's several different James Newberries, and we're not gonna go through all of them, we'll just kind of hit some highlights here.

James Newberry, and brought his family in.

There's not the records of his family being baptized, but we know that all of his family was associated with the Mormon movement in 1 way shape or another as far as we can tell.

Although some became embittered and left.

He was ordained to the priesthood, which if you're familiar with Mormon theology very much, the priesthood is a very major thing in the timeline.

I didn't talk about it yesterday, but in the timeline of major revelations that Joseph Smith counts and records is when he was ordained by Moses and Elijah and another 1 I believe I can't remember exactly and so he was maybe 1 of the Apostles I can't remember what they say but he was ordained and established what they referred to as the Melchizedek Priesthood.

And so still today I've had some of the missionaries talk to me and say, well we have established for us the Melchizedek Priesthood.

Well, they mean that is the church, the whole idea was that the gospel was being restored to them through Joseph Smith, through the continuing or further revelation of the Book of Mormon on all of this type of things, that the priesthood was also restored to them and this is another evidence that the Latter-day Saint movement is the true church in their minds because it has the restored priesthood as well.

Well my great-great-great-whatever grandfather was ordained to the priesthood by Joseph Smith.

He never became 1 of the biggest names in the movement, but you can see him recorded as somewhat of a middle leader.

So he was doing things for Joseph Smith, he was doing things for the church, he was a part of official delegations between as they're negotiating with the over the persecution that was taking place and I believe he actually was a part of the delegation that went, at least wrote to Washington, D.C.

He was purchasing land for the church and things of that nature.

But he's not 1 of the bigger names, which would be the presidency and the quorum of 12 and things like that.

And so he becomes a lesser leader in the movement and you see him tracking from Ohio when they went to, when they transferred to, first to Missouri, to the Independence Area, Liberty County, Missouri there.

When the persecution and the conflicts arose there, then he ended up going to first Iowa, which is where I'm from, and then went to Nauvoo, which is, I say Iowa, not in Illinois.

There was a ferry that went back and forth there at that time and so he transferred there is these various things were taking place.

Now when Joseph Smith was killed in 1844 a leadership struggle began because it was very clear who was the second leader of the church and that was Hyrum Smith.

The problem was both Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith were killed in that, when the mob came to the Carthage jail there and He was, Hyrum Smith was killed first and then Joseph Smith was killed after that.

And so there was no obvious leader to take the place of the prophet and the, I mean it was not just a prophet, it was more than that, a theocratic leader as well.

Well, you have a number of leaders that begin to emerge and 1 of them, probably the first 1 that emerged was James Strang and he was actually baptized in 1844 so he was a very recent convert and he claimed to be Joseph Smith's successor.

He had a letter that was supposedly from Joseph Smith that supposedly gave him the, as the, made him the leader of the church.

He was assigned by Joseph Smith to do missionary work to present their message of the restoration of the gospel in their minds in Wisconsin.

And so, Strang and his followers ended up based in Wisconsin.

But a transition took place because, like many times, and you see this virtually for the first, I don't know, decades, many decades of the movement, this Mormon movement, what you see is there's always persecution that arose because of the mindset.

They're trying to establish the kingdom of God on earth.

And so that means that they become involved in all the local politics and beyond that, and so it begins to alienate those that are not a part of the Mormon movement.

The other thing is they would arrive in mass in an area.

And so you would have hundreds or thousands depending on where it was that would come to an area and kind of overwhelm the local area.

They would begin to dominate the economy and the local government, which caused friction then with those that were there before.

And so you see this commonly playing out.

It happened in Ohio, although there were some other issues there in Ohio, definitely in Missouri, Illinois and Nauvoo where Joseph Smith was killed and you see it as on in Utah as well James Strang is Experiencing this same thing and so what he does is he moves his church to Beaver Island In Michigan now if you're familiar with Beaver Island if you know where Petoskey is and Charlevoix, there's a airlines and a ferry that goes from Charlevoix to Beaver Island.

It's 1 of the, it's not as well known as Mackinac Island, but it is actually larger than Mackinac Island.

It's right about there, if you look and see where it is.

And so, Beaver Island becomes the center for the Strangites.

And during this time, the different factions were generally referred to by the leader that they were following.

So James Strang was the leader here, and he became a very influential leader in this movement because, I don't know why, but he did.

And this is after Joseph Smith's death, Joseph Smith has been privately agitating for polygamy, But there's never been anything public about polygamy except some of the those that published and then the press was burned because they didn't like what was being said about it.

Polygamy becomes a major issue in the church at this time and it seems like a major part of the divisions that took place during this time because Brigham Young openly embraces polygamy, James Strang did not initially.

And those that did not embrace polygamy, which was Joseph Smith's wife, Emma, and her children, were definitely much more inclined to follow James Strang.

So that was a major differentiation there among these different groups.

And so James Strang eventually goes to Beaver Island and he takes over the local government there as normally took place when Mormons would go in mass to an area.

And so he arrived there and there was the typical tensions.

Now Strang went even further than most did.

All of the Mormon movement is trying to establish the kingdom of God on earth.

Series

From Mormonism to Adventism

My Journey Out of Mormonism

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

From Mormonism to Adventism

The Confusion of Mormonism

1h 2m

Sharing the Three Angels’ Messages in 30 Seconds

01 Sharing the Three Angels’ Messages in 30 Seconds

1h 4m

Adventism: The Answer to Modern Atheism

03 Evolving Evolution and Creation’s Case

53m

Adventism: The Answer to Modern Atheism

02 The Rocks Cry Out Since 1798

1h

The Three Angels' Messages

05 The Elevation of the Bishops and the Priesthood

58m

From Mormonism to Adventism

A Counterfeit Movement

1h 1m

A Dangerous Affection

05 The Best is Yet to Come

1h 1m

Adventism: The Answer to Modern Atheism

05 Answering the Atheist: The Top 5 Objections

1h 8m

Presenting Persuasive Appeals During Keys to Revelation

03 The Holy Spirit Makes Appeals Appealing

58m

Black Magic or Resurrection Power

02 Spiritualism and Witchcraft in the Old Testament

1h 1m

Presenting Persuasive Appeals During Keys to Revelation

05 Presenting Christ Centered Appeals with Confidence

1h 1m

His Invitation

06 Reconciliation, Unity, and Latter Rain Power

59m

Sound Doctrine