The Contorted Sign

We had just come home from our sojourn in the South Pacific. Our son Kirk and his new bride needed help moving their furniture and car from Phoenix to California. Jim drove a white pick-up truck full of their household goods, Kirk and Susan drove the yellow Ryder moving van and I drove their little red sports car. We each had a map marked identically in red to show the way to their apartment in California.

I gripped the steering wheel with sweaty palms and kept my eyes glued on the yellow moving van. The 25 mile per hour speed limit and one main road in Samoa didn't prepare me for zooming streaks passing by me on the multiple freeways of Arizona. I didn't have time to check the map, I depended on following the white pick-up truck and yellow Ryder in front of me. I kept losing sight of them. I wasn't used to switching lanes so quickly in heavy traffic. Suddenly the yellow Ryder took the off-ramp. I followed it. Kirk must be having engine problems or maybe Susan needs a rest stop, I reasoned. Jim would be close behind I felt sure. As the yellow Ryder pulled into a station I pulled up alongside. I stared up into the tall cab in disbelief. It wasn't Kirk and Susan at all. Strangers leered back at me.

My stomach knotted as I sat frozen. Kirk and Susan hadn't turned off the freeway, I had followed the wrong yellow Ryder. Now I sat alone, panicked and without a clue as to where I was. "Oh, Lord, help me," I prayed. "They don't know I took the wrong turn and I'm lost." There on the seat beside me lay the neatly folded map each of us was to follow in case we got separated. I had been determined I wouldn't get lost because I was the least prepared to reach our destination. I hadn't studied the map.

As a young woman I had listened to sermons and had gone to Sunday School throughout my life. I knew what Jesus was like from what others said but I never unfolded the map of God's Word myself. If I had, I would have known I made a wrong turn when I began following the Jesus of Mormonism.

How can we know we're following the road to eternal life with the real Jesus Christ? We can check the signs to see if they fall in line with the whole map of God's Word. He said,

"I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth."¹

A visible sign to remind us of His great love for us. God said He would send the Messiah to save us and made it clear how we'd know it was Him;

"Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call Him Immanuel."²

It's clear. A virgin would give birth. Other signs would tell where it would happen; and what his name would be. (Isaiah 8:14; 9:2,6-7)

Hundreds of years later, like neon arrows blinking on a freeway,

"An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.'"³

The Messiah came exactly the way God had said He would.

Mormon authorities have twisted the sign of the virgin birth, saying Jesus was conceived by a flesh and bone god.

"And Christ was born into the world as the literal Son of the Holy Being; he was born in the same personal, real, and literal sense that any mortal son is born to a mortal father. There is nothing figurative about his paternity; he was begotten, conceived and born in the normal and natural course of events, for he is the Son of God, and that designation means what it says."

So states the late Apostle and authority of the Mormon Church, Bruce McConkie, in his compendium, Mormon Doctrine page 742. (Also see Doctrine and Covenants 130:22 and 1 Nephi 11.)

The angel of the Lord told the virgin Mary:

"The Holy Ghost shall come upon you, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow you. Therefore also that Holy Thing which shall be born of you shall be called the Son of God."⁴

The signs God has given us have always occurred exactly as He said. Nine million people have followed a contorted sign, from a newer map--the Book of Mormon plus Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price. These maps lead sincere people off the road of eternal life with Christ. Just as I followed the yellow Ryder off the freeway because it looked like the one my son was driving, I also followed the Mormon religion which looked like the religion I had grown up knowing. It wasn't until I opened God's Word to check out an aspect of Mormonism that didn't appear right, that God led me back onto the Highway of His love, grace and mercy.

The One I follow now is Jesus Christ, born of a virgin in a manger in Bethlehem. He died in my place to cancel my sin, was buried, resurrected and is preparing a place for me in His home on high. I no longer follow a god who is flesh and bone and a Jesus who was a brother to Lucifer in a place called pre-existence. As I got back on the freeway toward the destination marked clearly on my map, I soon came upon a white truck with my husband in it, patiently waiting for his errant wife. Jesus, too is patiently waiting for our dear Mormon friends who have followed the wrong Jesus onto ways that lead to a dead-end.

"But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life."⁵

God's original road map, the Bible, will lead us straight to Him. We must beware of detours. (Galatians 1:6-9; Colossians 2:8) Let's be signposts, steering back to the real Jesus, those who have been led astray by twisted signs. Let's be heralds along the way pointing to Jesus, who said,

"I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me."⁶

Footnotes


1. Genesis 9:12-13
2. Isaiah 7:14
3. Luke 2:9-12
4. Luke 1:35
5. 1 Timothy 1:16
6. John 14:1