Will Durant, on his seventieth birthday, says regarding the mixed blessing of a long life: “To live forever would be about the greatest curse imaginable!” ¹ Unfortunately, Will Durant had it wrong. The greatest curse is dying without knowing Jesus as Savior and Lord. Many come to the end of their lives realizing they had not fulfilled their purpose in life. That’s a sad day. Your purpose is to know God, to walk with God and to build the kingdom of God. Because people don’t yield to these truths, they experience what will Durant described as the curse of life. There are reasons why things don’t go right in life as they should. Sometimes things it’s because people have chosen the wrong path. They have chosen to believe the wrong gospel. In this week’s blog, let’s take a look at how Paul pronounced a curse on a particular area of wrong choice.

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Galatians 1:8–9 (NKJV) 8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.

• What was the different gospel Paul referenced here?
• He details it in Galatians chapter four.

Galatians 4:9–11 (NKJV) 9 But now after you have known God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you desire again to be in bondage? 10 You observe days and months and seasons and years. 11 I am afraid for you, lest I have labored for you in vain.

• The Galatians were leaving the truth of Jesus to go back to the Jewish Old Testament ‘law’ method of observing days, months, seasons and years.
• They were leaving because they allowed false teachers entrance into their lives.
• They allowed them to infect them with a different gospel.
  • A gospel of bondage.
  • A gospel of works.
  • A gospel of self-righteousness.
• Paul had a message for these false teachers.
• He said they were accursed.
• The Greek word for ‘accursed’ is the opposite of being consecrated, that is set apart for sacred use.
• The word ‘accursed’ is the transliterated word ‘anathema’.
• It is a word used in the Septuagint, which is the Greek version of the Old Testament, of a person or thing, set apart and devoted to destruction, because it’s hateful to God. ²
• Paul pronounces a curse on those who preach a different gospel.
• These individuals have been set aside by God.
• That’s one reason why some are not blessed in life.
• You could say ‘cursing’ is the absence of the blessings of the Lord.
• It comes from preaching the wrong gospel.
• The blessings of God go with the ‘real gospel’.
• Cursing goes with ‘some other gospel’.
• If you are listening to or adhering to a different gospel, it may also be the reason why you are not blessed in life.
• The more you line your life up with the Word of God, the real gospel, the more the blessings of God will flow into your life.
• Saying it a different way.
• The more you align your life with what and how God says you should live, the better your life will be.

Angels and A Different Gospel

How Mormonism Came Into Being

• Notice again what Paul said.
• He said if he or an angel heaven came and preached a different gospel, the curses would fall.
• Mormonism is a different gospel.
• Mormonism came by the hands of an angel according to its founder Joseph Smith Jr. born on Dec. 23, 1805, in Vermont.
• Joseph Smith Jr. stated that he was disturbed by all the different denominations of Christianity and wondered which was true.
• In 1820, when he was 14, he went into the woods to pray concerning this and allegedly God the Father and Jesus appeared to him and told him not to join any of the denominational churches.
• Three years later, on Sept. 21, 1823, when he was 17 years old, an angel called Moroni, appeared to him and told him that he had been chosen to translate the book of Mormon which was compiled by Moroni’s father around the 4th century.
• On a side note: Moroni is thought by Latter Day Saints to be the same person as a Book of Mormon prophet-warrior named Moroni, who was the last to write in the golden plates.
• The book was written on golden plates hidden near where Joseph was then living in Palmyra, New York.
• Joseph Smith said that on Sept. 22, 1827, he received the plates and the angel Moroni instructed him to begin the translation process.
• The translation was finally published in 1830 as the Book of Mormon.
• Joseph claimed that during this translation process, John the Baptist appeared to him and ordained him to accomplish the divine work of restoring the true church by preaching the true gospel which, allegedly, had been lost from the earth.
• After the publication of the Book of Mormon, Mormonism began to grow.
• Because their religion was so deviant from Christianity, i.e., the plurality of gods, polygamy (Joseph is said to have had 27 wives), etc., persecution soon forced them to move from New York to Ohio, then to Missouri, and finally to Nauvoo, Illinois.
• After being accused of breaking some laws in Nauvoo (for destroying a printing press that was publishing harmful information on Mormonism), Joseph and his brother Hyrum ended up in jail.
• A mob later broke into the jail and killed Joseph and his brother.
• After the shooting, the church divided into two groups: One led by his widow which went back to Independence Missouri.
• They are known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
• They claim to be the true Church and lay claim to the legal succession of the church presidency which was bestowed upon Joseph’s son by Joseph Smith himself.
• The other group was led by Brigham Young and they went to Utah where, in 1847, they ended up in Salt Lake and founded Salt Lake City.
• Brigham had 25 wives and accumulated much wealth.
• So, what we have here in Mormonism is a cursed religion.
• It came just exactly the way Paul warned the Galatians and the church about, by the hands of an angel.

Call to Action:

There’s the right gospel, a gospel which brings blessing and a cursed gospel which has no blessing and subsequently leads to death. Get into the Bible for yourself. Build your life on the bedrock of God’s written Word.

Question: What other false religions have you heard of which came by the supposed revelation of an angel from God? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

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