As a one-time Mormon many decades ago of first the mainstream Mormon Church (3 years) and then its cousin, the Reorganized Church (4 years), I know a great deal not only about this cult but about most of its spin-offs which I investigated in some depth before coming to the inescapable conclusion that the whole venture was a fraud, including the Book of Mormon. In fact I had a prophetic warning about this several days ago. There are groups, like this woman's, who adhere only to the Book of Mormon and reject everything else Joseph Smith went on to establish. I was in regular contact with one which, if memory serves me right, was known as the Book of Mormon Foundation, but as this was so long ago I may have that wrong. But one thing I have noticed that is common to all Mormon groups, whether they accept only the Book of Mormon or the whole of Smithism, is that they all have a common haughty spirit - one that I can detect miles away.

What disturbs me the most about our latest variation on a Mormon theme is the decepive way that recruitment takes place. The most recent ruse is a Ning website purporting to be an exposé of James Trimm's Nazarane group called Answering Nazarene Judaism. It uses both his name and logo and at first sight appears to be a critique of the Trimm group when in reality it is an attack on all messianics. Pretending to be peoples' friend, this woman joins Facebook groups and simply uses Friends lists to invite people to her group, never to establish any relationship based on a shared belief in Christ. The name of the game is recruitment.

A lot has been written on the Book of Mormon proving that it is not an ancient text but a 19th century invention. One of my favourite authors on this subject is Dan Vogel, a professional historian who has written two books I can recommend called Religious Seekers and the Advent of Mormonism and Indian Origins and the Book of Mormon. Fawn Brodie, Klaus Hansen, and Michael Marquardt are also worth reading, along with Gerald & Sandra Tanner's, Mormonism: Shadow or Reality? I was weaned off the Book of Mormon in small steps, firstly being satisfied that there was no way it could have been an historical document and secondly that its theology was out of harmony with Biblical revelation. It's theology is a kind of refined presbyterianism, its Godhead doctrine a mixture of Trinitarianism and Modalistic Monarchism, its knowledge of Torah abysmal, and its plagiarisation of the King James Bible, Westminster Confession, a dream Smith's father had, and even Shakespeare so blatant that you have to be wearing sunglasses (as I was for so long) not to see through it. It's quotation of New Testament paraphrases of Torah really gave the game away, not because they were there but because they were inserted in the 'Old Tesament' portion of the Book of Mormon, a monumental blunder on the part of Joseph Smith. Indeed the catalogue of blunders is so large that you have to be controlled by religious spirits to believe in it.

I wasted years of my life believing in that fraud and being deceived by false spirits. I strongly counsel Messianics in particular (for whom I am writing this devotional today) to have nothing to do with it. The Book of Mormon follows the classic Presbyterian belief that Yah'shua (Jesus) fulfilled the Torah and put it aside (making it appealing in that respect to evangelicals), uses the corrupt 'Jehovah', claims to be Ezekiel's "stick of Ephraim" (which represented the 10 Tribes of Israel, not a book - Ezek.37:16-17; cp. 2:9) and actually says that the mythical 'Nephites' were descendants of Manasseh (Alma 10:3) - so how could it be the 'Stick of Ephraim'? Smith even produced his own mutilation of the Bible, just as the Jehovah's Witnesses have done - see how he changed the Book of Revelation. The list goes on and on.

So please be careful of our 'Messianic Mormon' lady - there is no such thing - the Book of Mormon is about as 'messianic' as the Pentecostals or the Presbyterians! If you want to know more, then please see my website, The Watcher: New Covenant Ministries for Mormons where you will find many articles on the Book of Mormon and Mormonism. Far from corroborating the Bible, the Book of Mormon contradicts it and leads souls astray. I know - I have been there, got out, and exchanged straw for gold.