Prophecy: Essay On My Exit And Deliverance From Mormonism

Mormon Chronicles

Originally drafted-April 17, 1992
Revised and posted to this website-November 7, 2000



August 23, 2004 (Updated January 30, 2014)

There are many today who worship today in groups that present "another gospel, another Jesus, another spirit" (2 Corinthians 11:4). Paul even said, at the time of that writing, that the church put up with such falsehoods easily enough. So it is today. It seems clear to me that information concerning my exit from Mormonism should be made public now, as the Lord gave me revelation, not from man, but from the Holy Spirit, to set me free from the spiritual forces that provide the invisible power behind the Book Of Mormon, that are very real.

People who belong to the Mormon groups react very negatively to some very basic and fundamentally central Christian teachings. The Utah, LDS group, for example, teaches that Jesus is not LORD and GOD, but one of many Gods. Please read this article, entitled LORD AND GOD

Many perceive such attempts as "bashing". That is not my intention here. I am concerned with a heart of deep concern that there are millions of people who carry faith in teachings that will not result in salvation. Many of these same people are my relatives by marriage.

I am convinced that, carefully followed, the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints will carry a person into HELL! I do not want to see anyone whom I know or have ever known in hell. I therefore attempt to persuade you, and to present you with that which I believe to be the truth. You should read it, weigh it and pray about it.

How could I say I loved someone if I did not attempt to communicate to them that the faith they were trusting in for eternal things was inherently defective? And so, this is not bashing, but a work of love and concern.

What follows below was written by me in 1992, just a short time after my departure from the LDS, but it still excites me to read it now, twelve years later. I hope sincerely that someone out there can use this information to help set another person free from the Book of Mormon, also realizing that they will not be set free unless prayer for the mormon is offered up to God that will coincide with information being offered to the person.

May the grace and guidance of our Lord Jesus Christ accompany these words!



April 17, 1992

I have meant to document my deliverance from Mormonism for some time but have just failed to get around to it. So much of what the Lord did for me and showed me was from him and not from man. I really felt led of the Lord last night and today to document the light that was shown me concerning the darkness of Mormonism.

Mormonism is a euphemism for a movement that began in the year 1830 with the publication of the "Book of Mormon" by Joseph Smith. The church founded around the movement was known as the "Church of Christ until 1835, when the name was changed to "The Church of the Latter Day Saints". Upon the death of Joseph Smith, the church fragmented into many smaller pieces. The largest group travelled west to establish Salt Lake City, now in Utah. Brigham Young led this offshoot.

Today, we find probably several hundred offshoots of that original church. The most significant is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, based in Salt Lake City. This is the one I belonged to. With approximately 8 million members worldwide and 52 temples in place (in 1992), it is by far the largest.

Second largest is the "Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints", based in Independence, Missouri.

Also significant, though small, is the "Church of Christ, Temple Lot", based in Independence, Missouri. Although they boast of only a few thousand members, they hold title to the piece of real estate in Independence that Joseph Smith prophesied about in the "Book Of Commandments", which was later republished as "The Doctrine And Covenants". Smith prophesied that Independence would be the "center place upon which the temple of the Lord would be built". The Utah church has given this little "Church of Christ" a blank check for this piece of real estate in Independence, only to have their offers repeatedly rejected.

I do not wish to write a book on Mormonism: and I won't! There are literally hundreds of them out there and I have read almost every one of them. God will deliver any Mormon from any one of these so called churches in a very short time if that individual will go to the Lord with a humble heart and pray, then that Mormon can visit any library of reasonable size with an open mind and a humble heart and he can find more historical information than he would ever want to read, both pro and con.

Movies, such as "The Godmakers", are effective at getting people out of these "cults". It was very EYE OPENING for me to see, on that movie, a video picture of the north entrance to the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City. Over the door to that Northern entrance, there is an inverted pentagram (the power symbol of Satanism). This was quite a shock to me when I watched "The Godmakers", and caused me to pause, think and pray.

The anti-mormon movies do little good in dealing with the need for secondary deliverance that so plagued me: Freedom from the "Book of Mormon", and from the demon who set it up and defended it as truth inside of my mind.

Almost every attack against Mormonism focuses upon activities of the groups, or polygamy, or against latter purported revelation. I have read very few effective attacks against the Book of Mormon. Perhaps the best in print is contained in Josh McDowell's book, "A Ready Defense". These attacks are somewhat effectively dealt with by the Utah Mormon Church. When pressed, the leadership of that Utah church will admit that some doubt exists as to such supposedly divinely authored works as "The Pearl of Great Price". They will even back away from certain of the revelations in the "Doctrine and Covenants."

Some Mormons fall away from the church but retain a belief in the truth of the Book of Mormon. My ex-wife is among these. Some Mormons, approximately half of the membership of the Utah church by my estimation, continue in the church even though they only accept the Bible and Book of Mormon as inspired. This explains the reason why less than one-half of all mormons have done any rites for the dead in any of the church's 52 temples.

That is what they do in their 52, (probably many more in the year 2000) temples: rites for the dead. They baptize living Mormons by proxy for their dead relatives. That is the reason why Mormons are experts in geneology. The also perform sealing marriages for time and all eternity there, in those temples. Apparently, they do not believe that Jesus was talking to them when he said that there would be no marriage or giving in marriage in heaven.

I was baptized in a ward of "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" on September 29, 1987. I paid my last tithe as a Mormon not even two months later on November 15, 1987. The period that followed was a lonely time for me.

I was free of the cult but not free from "The Book of Mormon". This set me apart as a loner and I could not attend any true Christian fellowship carrying this book with me, yet I could not put it away because I was seeking truth, and deep down, I still believed that it was of God. I could not find anything in it to mark it as obviously false. The only attacks against it seemed to mirror the attacks I often read about that are levied against the bible. I have heard people attack the book by saying that Elephants and horses have never been found by archeologists in America, so the Book of Mormon must be a lie. Some of the same people attacked the Bible because it referred to golden calfs and calf idols and none had ever been found by archeologists: until 1989. These types of attacks did not persuade me. I wanted to find some doctrinal error in it.

Josh McDowell does note in "A Ready Defense", that the Book of Mormon states in the Book of Alma that "he (the son of God) shall be born of Mary at Jerusalem, which is the land of our forefathers." We all know that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. I have seen a Mormon tract which defends against this attack, however, and explains the use of Jerusalem in this verse as a reference to the general area around Jerusalem. This is somewhat persuasive given the rest of the language in the verse. I can tell you firsthand that this is not enough to persuade any Mormon that the Book Of Mormon is of the devil.

I was bound by the demons given charge over this book for 42 months. After fasting and praying to know the truth, the Lord told me to test the Book Of Mormon as I had previously tested the bible. God commanded me to look for even one teaching that contradicted the Bible, and if I found it, the Book of Mormon would be proven to not be of God.

Within 3 days, I had the one contradiction. I had never read about it or heard of it before and it is the reason for this writing to you. The contradiction lies within the doctrine of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, as taught by the Book Of Mormon

The Bible states in John 16:7:

"But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you."

Notice in Mark 1:8 the future tense in "he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit".

John 14:26 states that:

"But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you."

After Jesus death, it was written in Acts 1:5:

"in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit."

This was fulfilled in Acts 2:4:

"All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them."

All biblical historians would place this baptism of the Holy Spirit between 30 and 35 A.D. Certainly all of them would agree that Christ first had to come, die on the cross, be resurrected and return to the father before the baptism of the Holy Spirit could occur.

Shockingly, the Book of Mormon records the first baptism of the Holy Spirit in 147 B.C.

The one curious thing about the Book of Mormon that always seemed a little bit hard for me to believe, even when I was a strong mormon, was that the book has dates on every page from 600 B.C. to 400 A.D. We have no such accuracy or dating on a play by play basis for the bible. Scholars disagree on the dating and writing of many biblical books. We do not even know who wrote the book of Hebrews for sure. Yet, there is so much certainty internally within the Book of Mormon. Every page has a date of authorship. This always stretched the bounds of credibility for me. But it is this very dating that proves the book false.

The Book of Alma contains the following statements:

"And after Alma had said these words, both Alma and Helam were buried in the water; and they arose and came forth out of the water rejoicing, being filled with the Spirit. And they were called the Church of God, or the church of Christ, from that time forward." 147 B.C.

"And now behold, I ask of you, my brethren of the church, Have ye spiritually been born of God? 83 B.C.

"And now I do know of myself that they are true; for the Lord God hath made them manifest unto me by his Holy Spirit; and this is the spirit of revelation which is in me. Even so according to the spirit of prophecy, which is in me, which is also by the manifestation of the Spirit of God, I say unto you, that I know of myself that whatsoever I shall say unto you concerning that which is to come, is true." 83 B.C.

"Behold I say unto you, Yea, I know that ye believe them; and the way that I know that ye believe them, is by the manifestation of the Spirit which is in me." 83 B.C.

"And he doth not dwell in unholy temples" 83 B.C.

"And Alma went forth, and also Amulek, among the people to declare the words of God unto them; and they were filled with the Holy Ghost; and they had power given unto them, insomuch that they could not be confined in dungeons; neither were it possible that any man could slay them." 82 B.C.

"And having the spirit of prophecy, and the spirit of revelation, and also many gifts; the gift of speaking with tongues, and the gift of preaching, and the gift of the Holy ghost, and the gift of translation." 82 B.C.

"Now it came to pass, that when Alma had said these words, that he clapped his hands upon all them who were with him. And behold, as he clapped his hands upon them, they were filled with the Holy Spirit." 74 B.C.

"Yea, all those who were true believers in Christ, took upon them, gladly, the name of Christ, or Christians, as they were called, because of their belief in Christ, who should come." 73 B.C.

The Book of Helaman contains the following statements:

"And Nephi and Lehi were in the midst of them; yea they were encircled about; yea, they were as if in the midst of a flaming fire, yet it did harm them not, neither did it take hold upon the walls of the prison; and they were filled with that joy which is unspeakable and full of glory. And behold the Holy Spirit of God did come down from heaven, and did enter into their hearts, and they were filled as if with fire; and they could speak forth marvelous words." 29 B.C.



These events could not have occurred until Jesus hung on the cross, announced "it is finished", died on the cross and then, and only then, was the veil that separated the holy place from the Holy of Holies rent in twain. There was separation from God until then. To say that all of these giftings and baptisms occurred up to 180 years before the death of Christ and his glorification makes Jesus a liar in John 16:7.

It would not be right for me to fail to mention John 7:37-39, which was the very first scripture the Lord quickened to me by the Holy Spirit to impart this revelation to me:

"In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified."

It is very clear that our human body was no made to be a temple of the living God until the blood of Jesus Christ had been shed to cleanse it. Only after this act of love was the body turned into a new creature and cleansed to such an extent that the Holy Spirit could indwell it. This scripture clearly presents the Spirit as having NOT YET BEEN GIVEN through that point. The Spirit had previously come upon prophets and prophets had been led to write by the Spirit, but He had not and could not indwell any man until the glorification of Jesus had been completed

I noticed additionally that Acts 11:26 states that:

"The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch." This had to be after 40 A.D., yet the book of Mormon calls this statement a lie too.

These were the truths that the Lord revealed to me that allowed me to be set free from the bondage of the spirits of mormonism. I was then free to seek fellowship in a body of believers. My prayer is that you can use this information to help set other captives free.

God Bless You

Stephen L. Bening


Email: stephen@usaprophet.com


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