A River of Grace

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A River of Grace
By Dave Franco - December 9, 2021

It was rainy in Winter Garden, Florida, in the spring of 2004, making biking from house to house, as Mormon missionaries do, rather difficult. And so, a bit behind on their visits, 19-year-old Micah Wilder and his missionary partner got the notion that they could make up for lost time if they just attended a service at the Baptist church, they happened to be going past one Sunday evening. With so many people in need of their message all in one place, it seemed like a brilliant idea.  And they had a plan. They would go into Calvary Baptist Church, check out the scene and schedule a meeting with the pastor. Then they could provide an airtight case that God, who called prophets in the Old Testament, was clearly continuing the pattern with the arrival of Joseph Smith onto the scene in 1923 after angels directed him to ancient sacred writings upon golden plates in New York. Once Micah and his partner converted the pastor, his flock would surely follow. 

A Life-Changing Meeting

It may seem like a bold idea, but bold was what Micah was all about. Having lived in Mormon-rich Alpine, Utah, with a mother who was a tenured professor at Brigham Young University and a dad who was a high priest in the church, Micah had been submerged in the doctrine since birth. He knew his stuff inside and out because he studied what he was living and lived what he studied. He brimmed with confidence in his ability to express the LDS message of modern-day revelation and his capacity to kindly fillet any and all objections. He knew how to reach places deep within a person’s heart. It didn’t hurt that during his missionary training he learned Mormon missionaries had been given exclusive authority from God to act in his name.  And that is exactly how he felt when he sat down with the pastor on the following Tuesday morning only the meeting didn’t go according to plan. Micah presented what he felt was an airtight case. He explained the Mormon church was the true church of Jesus Christ, containing the necessary authority and ordinances of doctrine that had been lost, and that obedience and works, along with grace, make up the righteousness that wins salvation.  “Pastor Benson had the gall to intimate that Micah’s religion, and therefore his life, was predicated on a lie.”

After listening, Pastor Alan Benson leaned forward. “I strongly disagree with your message. It is not the gospel of Jesus Christ as revealed in the Word of God.”

Speaking boldly yet lovingly, he continued, “Gentlemen, what you have shared with me is not the good news.” 

The more they talked, the more it seemed clear the pastor thought Mormons had been walking past a massive river of grace running straight through the Bible and somehow managed to miss it. All mankind had to do, he maintained, was to put their faith in Jesus and his work on the cross to receive salvation. When Jesus died, his sacrifice alone finished the work of salvation.  Micah thought about it. Ridiculous, of course.  And so, he did what he was good at battled back, making his case with irrefutable substance. But the more he tried, the more infuriated he became as the pastor stayed cool while maintaining Micah’s argument was rooted in deception.  After 90 exhausting minutes, Pastor Benson said, “I invite you gentlemen to read the New Testament like a child.”

This proposition left Micah profoundly hot under the collar and stirred to his core. He was going to read the Bible all right. He would do it to support his position and break apart the pastor’s. The gospel of Jesus is not about grace alone but grace and obedience, Micah thought. He would prove it; he had to. Pastor Benson had the gall to assert that Micah’s religion, and therefore his life, was predicated on a lie.  So, with fervor and even a bit of excitement, Micah opened the pages of the New Testament and dove in. He studied Jesus’ miracles and sermons, the acts of the apostles and the letters to the churches. He read from Matthew’s Gospel to John’s Revelation and back again, notepad at hand to jot down the truths that would make his case.  “Micah didn’t realize it, but he was changing at the cellular level.”

Days turned into weeks and months, and Micah was unrelenting, logging a lot of time late into the night. The hours were adding up, but strangely, the entries in his notepad were not. But that was OK. Micah knew it was just a matter of remaining diligent. 

A Change of Heart

One year turned into nearly two, and little by little, the Bible began to speak to Micah. It was coming alive, telling a different story than he had assumed was there. Did it leave room for a fundamentally different approach to faith to spring up on the other side of the world that held the authority over the Old and New Testaments? 

Not even close.  Micah didn’t realize it, but he was changing at the cellular level spiritually speaking. His fellow missionaries began to notice that no matter what they were talking about, Micah would find a way to lead the conversation back to Jesus. He was hungry to return again and again to the pages of the Bible as his initial intent for reading it to prove his point began to fade. He was simply hungry for more, how it was making him feel. He was reading the Bible “like a child.”  Finally, the day came when he had to put the Bible down and let himself believe the fight was over. The Word of God was in the Old and New Testaments. The Mormon doctrine was not. Micah prayed and told God he finally understood and was ready to receive the truth. Jesus was enough. Salvation was by Jesus alone. Micah cried out in triumph.  “I no longer have to wonder if I have done enough, because I have been bought with a price. I testify that Jesus Christ is enough.” 

But just a few days later, Micah was to attend his area’s Final Zone Conference, the periodic gathering of missionaries, including the Mormon mission president, to take up all manner of issues facing Mormons assigned to proselytize a particular geographic area. As this was his final meeting before being sent home, he was going to be called before the council to give an account of the revelations shown him by God during his time as a missionary, to witness to the inherited prophesy of Joseph Smith.  Terror began to come over him. Micah began to pray that God would give him the words and strength to be a faithful witness to what had opened his eyes to the truth.  Suddenly, it was his time to give an account. Micah walked up with his throat in his stomach and hands shaking nearly uncontrollably. As soon as he looked out over the nearly 50 missionaries, tears started to fall.

An Impromptu Speech

“I can only tell you how I feel and what is in my heart,” Micah started. “All I can say is that the love of God changes people. And it has changed me in ways I didn’t even know possible. It has made me a new person. For so long, I was in darkness and now I have found the light of the world, Jesus Christ. My life will never be the same.  I have fallen so many times in the brokenness. I have come face-to-face with my own sin and weakness, and yet Christ has picked me up and carried me in the safety of his merciful arms. As the Bible says, ‘God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.’ Elders and sisters, God loves us so much. He grants us eternal life through Jesus Christ as a free gift by his amazing grace, even when we don’t deserve it. God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  My dear friends,” he continued, “Christ waded through the horrible agonies of the atonement for us. He drank the most bitter of cups and did not shrink from them, for our sake. Jesus gave the supreme sacrifice when he laid down his life for us and bought our salvation with his blood. On the third day he rose again, proof that he had conquered death itself. This is the greatest expression of love in the history of mankind. Compared to that, nothing else matters.  To my friends, I love you, and I’ll miss you,” Micah said. “Never forget that Christ is everything we need, and without him we are nothing. I am not perfect, but through my faith in him I am perfected by his righteousness, so I will always do my best to bring glory and honor to the King.  I no longer have to wonder if I have done enough, because I have been bought with a price. I testify that Jesus Christ is enough. He is everything. Amen.”

A New Beginning

As Micah looked into the faces of his fellow missionaries, he noticed what appeared to be something resembling an odd acceptance. Could it be that something in his speech had touched a nerve?

Were his fellow Mormons hurting?

A few days later, Micah got a call from the mission president. What transpired was a conversation that ran the full range of emotions. It started out combative, but ended in somber, hushed tones. Tearfully, the mission president bid Micah a loving farewell. With the soft click of the phone, Micah was excommunicated from the Mormon church. He was free.

In 2006, a short time after leaving the Mormon church, Micah and a handful of other former Mormons founded a ministry of music and testimonies called Adam’s Road. They share the gospel with churched and unchurched audiences, but have a particular burden for Mormons, who they know are suffering under a false doctrine. Micah understands firsthand how desperately they need to know the truth that salvation is through Jesus alone and not dependent on their works. He continues to encourage them to read the Bible, as he once did, like a child.  You can read more of Micah’s story in his recently released book Passport to Heaven: The True Story of a Zealous Mormon Missionary Who Discovers the Jesus He Never Knew (Harvest House).

KEY BIBLE VERSES TO SHARE WITH A MORMON

Micah Wilder, a former Mormon missionary, suggests using the following Scriptures when witnessing to a Mormon:

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” —Ephesians 2:8–9‬

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.” —Romans‬ 3:23–25 

“Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.” —Romans‬ 4:4–5‬

“Then they said to him, ‘What must we do, to be doing the works of God?’ “Jesus answered them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.’ ” —John‬ 6:28-29‬

“Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.” ‬‬—Galatians ‬2:16‬ 

“But when the goodness and loving-kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” —Titus‬ 3:4–7