Episode 68

In this episode of the Removing Barriers podcast, we interview Micah Wilder, one of the founding members of Adam’s Road Ministries. Adam’s Road is a ministry that seeks to glorify God and point everyone to the cross through song and testimony. A devoted Mormon up until the moment of his salvation, Micah’s zeal for knowing and serving God drove him to serve as an LDS missionary with almost Pauline ferocity. He sought to convert a Baptist minister to Mormonism, only to hear a clear and compelling presentation of the gospel for the very first time. That moment changed him forever and set off a chain of events that leads him to where he is today: a genuine believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. There were a few barriers between him and salvation, though, so join us on this episode as we discover what those barriers were and how the Lord removed them to bring Micah to a true knowledge of Himself.

I considered myself in greater standing with God than other people because of my good deeds. And so in reading the Bible, in having the Gospel presented to me, I actually had a hard time grasping me that God did not love me because of me. In fact, loved me in spite of me.Thank you for tuning in to the Removing Barriers Podcast. I’m Jay and I’m MCG, and we’re attempting to Remove Barriers so we can all have a clear view of the cross. This is episode 68 of the Removing Barriers Podcast, and this is the 18th in the series of How Were Your Barriers Removed? And in this episode, we’ll find out how Micah’s barriers were removed when he came to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Do you have the desire to earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the Saints? Answers in Genesis can help. They provide biblically sound books, CDs, DVDs, Homeschooling materials, VBS materials, online courses, digital downloads, and the Answers magazine and more. Plus tickets to the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter. Go to the Answers Bookstore by clicking the link in the description section below. So you, too, can be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks the reason of the hope that is in you.

Micah, welcome to the Removing Barriers Podcast. Thank you. It’s such an honor to be here. Great. We’re glad to be able to fit in your schedule.

I know when I first contacted you, you were on the road doing your Ministry. Adams Road. So tell us about Adams Road. And what do you do there? Adams Road is a Ministry that shares the gospel through music and testimony. And so we’ve been together over 15 years, and we spend about four to five months each year traveling on a tour bus all throughout North America, sharing the Gospel of Christ, encouraging and equipping the body of Christ to go out and to be faithful witnesses of the gospel and to fulfill our supreme purpose, which is to go out and share Jesus with the world and fulfill the great Commission. We’ve been doing that for several years, and it’s been just a critical part of our lives of our Ministry is going out and doing that. And so we just returned home about two weeks ago from a trip that took us to every corner of the United States. And we saw the gospel impact the lives of many people. And we’re just so grateful that he’s given us that platform to be able to share the word of God. Great.

I’m curious what’s in the name Adams Road? So the name Adams Road comes from the first man, Adam, who brought sin and death into the world in condemnation. Well, Jesus is the second or the last Adam. And Jesus brings justification in life through the blood that he shed on the cross. And so Adam’s Road is simply the road from the first Adam to the last Adam from the garden to the cross. And so that’s the road that every human being is on is we’ve all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. However, our redemption is found in the finished work of Christ on the cross. And so we look to Jesus. And so Adams wrote, is that we continue forward to the cross of Christ, and we find our Salvation in Him. Great.

And how can folks learn more about your Ministry website? Social media? Yeah. So you can learn everything about our Ministry at adamsroadministry. Com. One of the unique aspects of what we do is when we first came to Salvation and had this desire to share the gospel, we started a music group. And so that’s primarily what we do is create music that glorifies God in particular, puts the Bible into song. And so we take the Bible. We put it the Scripture, the Word of God into music. And then we actually offer all of our music for free. So we have 20 albums. We have full length studio albums. We have spoken word albums. We have the Gospel of John, the Book of Romans, all types of the Word of God put to music. And then you can get right on our website, Adamswardadministry, dot com and download any and all of our music for free. Okay. Great.

All right. Micah, let’s get into your testimony. Tell us, Micah, what state or country were you born in? So I was born in the Midwest. So I’m from Indiana originally, and I spent the first 15 years of my life there. I was born and raised in a very devout Mormon home, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. My parents had converted to Mormonism when they were in their early 20s before any of us children were ever born. And so we were raised in this religion where we had, I would say, a very sincere and devoted zeal to God. We were very dedicated to going to Church every Sunday, to praying, to reading the scriptures, to living out the Commandments of our faith with sincerity and with passion. And so when I was 15 years old, my family and I left Indiana and moved to Utah, which most people know it is kind of the heart, the Mecca of the Mormon Church. And so we moved to a very prestigious Mormon town called Alpine, Utah, which is about 98% to 99% Mormon. Wow. And so it was a huge cultural shock for me, going right into the heart of this religious community. My mother got a job to be a professor at Brigham Young University, BYU, which is a private Mormonown College in Provo, Utah. For me at that time of my life, really, every aspect of my identity became rooted in my religion. And so you couldn’t separate who I was as a person from who I was in Mormonism because all of my friends, certainly my family, my community, my culture, everything that I knew and loved and developed as a young man growing up was rooted in my religious identity. And Mormonism, much like Solid Tarsus, was as a Jew when he’s talking to the Philippians in chapter three. And he kind of lists those accolades that he had right Hebrews from the tribe of Benjamin Circumcised on the 8th day as to the law blameless, I would say that very much described myself in Mormonism. He said that he was advancing in Judaism beyond many people his own age, how extremely zealous was he for the traditions of his father’s. And so I was kind of like that. I was like the soul of Mormonism. I was a Mormon of Mormons, and I really lived out my faith because I had a zeal for God. And I wanted to establish a right relationship with God. And if you don’t know much about Mormonism, if you’re listening to this, it’s a very works based righteousness. And so the way that an individual is righteous before God is not only through accepting what Jesus Christ did on the cross, but then each individual has to contribute through a lifetime of good works and obedience to the laws and the Commandments and the ordinances of this religious institution. And so from the time that I was a kid, I had this desire to know God and to be known by God. And that propelled me into being such a faithful Mormon was because I thought that the more that I offered God through the construct of my religion, the more God was going to love me and forgive me. And that’s what I was pining for as a young Mormon man was to have this favor with God. And so I was a very dedicated young Mormon man. I lived the Commandments. I was obedient to the tenets of the Church, and I had a testimony of it. And I really believe that it was everything that it claimed to be. And Mormonism claims exclusivity. It claims that it is the one true Church of Jesus Christ on the Earth. And it’s the only authority by which mankind can ultimately be saved. And so that was a truth that I had grown up believing and that I held very dear with all my heart.

Let’s backtrack a little bit. Go back to your family a little bit. Tell us about where do you fall among your siblings or your oldest, the youngest. And how did your family faith? Your parents, mom, dad, kind of help shape the way you look at this religion, Mama. Yeah. So there are four kids in our family. I was the third out of four. So there are three boys and then a girl. And so I was the youngest son. My parents were incredible. People are incredible people. They raised us in a very God centered, moral centered, family centered lifestyle. And I do admire the Mormons dedication to wanting to live out their faith. And I think that they have a zeal for God, as Paul said about the Jews, but not according to knowledge. It’s actually a zeal that I think many Christians can learn from. And I genuinely admire that zeal that is within the Mormon people. So my parents very much so exemplified that zeal. They were incredibly loving. They were serving. They were dedicated to their callings in the Mormon Church, to taking us to Church, to reading the Scriptures with us and praying and really trying to live out our faith on a daily basis.

Micah, you described your family in great detail and your upbringing in the Mormon Church. And as a young Mormon man, could you go into describing what your life was like before Salvation? You describe Mormonism as a very works based religion. Did that weigh heavily on you as a child coming up in the faith, or what was it like for you in your life before Salvation? Yeah, that’s a really good question. I think that the older that I got, I think that the more heavily the burden of my sin began to weigh on me because obviously, as I got older, I recognized him more and especially in my teenage years, my high school years living out in Utah, as zealous as I was in living out this faith and being obedient to the Commandments, you can’t deceive the heart. And so I knew the nature of my sin within me, the nature of my thoughts. And I tried to hide that from the people around me. But I knew that I couldn’t hide it from God. And eventually it did put a great burden on me because I would really vacillate between feeling like my relationship with God was secure and that I was in right standing with them. And then I would feel like when I sinned, and when I did things that were contrary to what I knew was right according to my religion, I felt like I lost that favor with God. And what that did in my heart was it caused me to have to kind of earn my way back into God’s love, into His Grace, into that forgiveness that I wanted. And so that was kind of my life throughout high school, before I came to know the Grace of God in Christ, it was just this constant yearning and working and seeking and trying to always be good enough for what I thought God was requiring of me. And sometimes I really felt like I was. And I lived it out. And other times I felt the weakness of my flesh overwhelmed me. And that caused me, I guess, to have a certain amount of fear whether or not I had been forgiven. And so I would strive to do everything that I could to follow all the descriptions that my religion had given me as to how I could find penitence with God. And in Mormonism, it’s unique because it’s similar to Catholicism in the sense where you have a man mediator between you and God. And so when you commit certain sins and transgressions, you can’t find forgiveness directly through God or directly to God through Christ. You actually have to go to a man mediator confess those sins, and then he prescribes the way in which an individual can then find forgiveness. And you don’t know that you’ve been forgiven until your religious leader gives you the assurance of that forgiveness. Wow. I had to go through that. And so the term you burden, I think, very aptly describes what I went through and what a lot of Mormons go through is a burden of uncertainty as to whether or not they’ve done enough to appease God. The Mormonism has a level of confession and didn’t know that. That’s interesting. Yes. So for a congregation, a Mormon congregation, they would have a Bishop. And so he’s essentially the role of, say, a pastor. And so if I, as a teenage man, committed certain sins, I would then have to go to my Bishop. I would have to confess those sins and then go through that process of penitents. Interesting.

Do you remember the first time you heard the gospel, the first time you actually hear a clear presentation of the true Gospel? I do. I remember it clearly. It’s one of the most memorable moments of my entire life. So I was a full time Mormon missionary. If you’re familiar with the missionaries, they have the white shirts and the ties and the name Tags. And so I served my two year mission in Orlando, Florida, and it was just a few months into my two year mission commitment that I tried to convert a Baptist pastor to the Church. And again, just evidence as to how passionate I was for my faith.

Did you knock on his door or did you went to his Church? We actually went to his Church. And so we attended a Sunday evening service, and so we walked in and there were probably 100 people there. And we sat through the service and then introduced ourselves to the pastor and scheduled a meeting to come back and to kind of have a formal discussion with him. And it was in that meeting where I sat face to face with this very loving and compassionate Christian man that I heard the gospel for the first time in my life, and my life was never the same.

Tell us more about that encounter, because that was pretty bold. I’ve had Mormons come and knock on my door, but I’ve never seen any of them come to my Church and actually try to convert. I think you hit the nail on the head when you say you’re like Saul with that passion and that zeal, because I would imagine Paul would do something like that. He would go into synagogue and kick out the Christians or whatever. But, yeah, dive a little bit deep in that. Yeah. So when we met with this man, one thing I really want to emphasize about my encounter with him. His name was Alan Benson, is I encountered a lot of people on my mission that said that they were Christians. But their response to us was just to tell us that we were going to hell and then to Slam the door in our face. And so one of the things as a Ministry through Adams Road that we emphasized time and again is the way in which we approach the gospel matters. It matters to Jesus. It mattered to the Apostles. And Paul leaves it out very clear when he says that you can have faith, to move mountains, you can give up your body to be burned. But if you do not have love, then you are just a noisy gong and a clinging symbol. And then in chapter 16, he goes on and says, Let everything that you do be done in love. And so Jesus, of course, prior to Paul, set that standard when he said that for by all this woman know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another, I think that the love aspect and love can be challenging. It can be convicting. I’m not saying that it’s not. But I think that when we approach nonbelievers with the gospel, so often, our approach is to be argumentative, it’s to be combative it’s, to be self righteous, to be judgmental, and we don’t approach it with a true, loving and compassionate heart with the desire to win them to Christ. And now Paul encourages us to correct our opponents with gentleness. And so that’s something that really stuck out to me about this Christian man is he treated me just from a carnal standpoint, from a fleshly standpoint. He just treated us different. He was kind. He was gracious, he was compassionate, he was understanding. He was respectful and honestly, I wasn’t accustomed to that. As a Mormon missionary, 99% of people would very violently and vehemently reject us. And so I think that that’s something that is an important part of my testimony is when we share the gospel, we can be bold, but we can be loving at the same time. The two are not mutually exclusive. I mean, Jesus came and he brought Grace and truth. And I think sometimes we want to bring the Grace, and we just want to love people. But then in that love, we omit truth. And then other people just tend to bludgeon people over the head with truth, but they don’t do it in the way that we’re called to do it in Scripture. And so I think Pastor Benson was the ultimate example of doing both. And so in our discussion as we shared our belief system with Him, he very lovingly but very pointedly responded to our message of workspace Salvation with the simple saving gospel of Jesus as revealed through the Scriptures through the Bible. And so I heard this message. And the message was simply that Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary paid the full penalty for the sins of mankind, and that he did everything necessary in order to reconcile us to God, and that he paid that debt in full. And that wasn’t something that we could ever earn or work for or be worthy of. That eternal life itself was a free gift to be received by faith, for by Grace you have been saved through faith. It’s not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of work, so that no. 1 may boast. And so he presented this gospel so clearly and so simply that God wasn’t requiring me to prove my worthiness to Him. God was calling me to turn and to face Christ and to trust completely in the finished work of Jesus on the cross and through his death, burial and resurrection. I could have the guarantee of the forgiveness of my sins through what Jesus did as he stood in my place as my substitute and bore in his body my sins on the tree. That was the gospel presented to me 19 years old as the most zealous Mormon missionary you could ever meet. And then the culmination of this meeting came with a challenge. And he said, Young man, you don’t have to trust me. And I think that that’s such a wise thing for a man to say. I’m not asking anybody to trust me, that I’m asking you to trust the Word of God. And so he said, I challenge you. Go to the Bible, go to the Word of God and read the New Testament like a child. And he used that exact phrase like a child. And I think what he meant by that was approach God’s Word without preconception. Right? Remove these preconceived notions about what truth is and who God is and who Jesus is according to what you’ve been taught by your religion and just allow God’s word to speak for itself and to come to God humbly, seeking for truth. And that if you do that, God will show you truth, and he will open your eyes. And so I was given that challenge as a 19 year old Mormon missionary. And that challenge changed the trajectory of my life because I ultimately ended up accepting that invitation, reading the Bible throughout the course of my mission, and God subsequently began to change my life.

An incredible testament. What an incredible story. Just out of curiosity, before I ask you the next question, do you still keep in contact with Pastor Benson? I do. In fact, he was just here in Florida last weekend, so he stayed with us. He actually spoke at our Church. And so, yeah, I get to see him probably once a year or so. And he’s the executive vice President of Bob Jones University there in Green, South Carolina. So that’s where God calls him at the time. And he’s overseeing the seminary there and training young men and women to go out and to share the gospel. Praise the Lord. That’s great.

Now, when you were sitting down and talking with him, did everything click in your mind at that particular moment, and you came to fully realize your sin? Or was it as you took up the challenge to approach the Word of God like a child, that God began to Peel away the layers of onion, if you would, and cause you to realize your sin, when did you come to that full realization of the enormity of your sin? Yeah. So I will very candidly admit it did not happen in that moment. In fact, I very strongly rejected the gospel at that time of my life. I was so deeply rooted in my religious identity in this false gospel of Mormonism. The entire gospel of Grace. To me, honestly, it breaks my heart to say this, but at that time of my life, it was foolishness. It was folly. Paul said, the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. And so this simple message. And I think that’s what I had such a hard time grasping was how simple the gospel is that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. And so my question is, well, what else? Right? What more? But it’s not what else? It’s period that God sent his Son into the world to save the world. And so that was God’s love for mankind revealed in Jesus Christ. And so we either trust in Christ or we don’t. And so for me, I thought I believed in Jesus, and he was certainly a core part of my belief system as a Mormon. But the difference was I wasn’t putting all of my trust in him. You can’t have it both ways. You cannot accept the Grace of God and still continue in the law because you can’t put new wine into old wineskins unless they burst. And so Mormonism is this perfect amalgam of trying to adhere to elements of the old law while instituting the new Covenant of Grace. And you can’t have both things. I actually ended up getting into a pretty heated discussion with Pastor Benson. It wasn’t heated from his side, but it was from mine. And I think as I look back on this encounter, like, Why was I so angry? And it’s not because Pastor Benson was deliberately offensive, and it’s not because he did anything in the way in which he presented the message. It was the message itself. It was offensive to me. But we know that the word of God is living an active and sharper than any two edged sword. And so for me, as a non believer, I tell you, I was so pierced and convicted that day. And so when I took Pastor Benson’s challenge initially, it was because my understanding was that if I read the New Testament, I could then prove that Mormonism was true. And so there was no part of me walking away from this experience with this Christian pastor that thought that I was wrong, that thought that I needed to change that considered that Pastor Benson was right. I had never sought truth outside of the walls of my religion, and that was no different even in going to the Bible. The whole point of going to the Bible for me at that time was simply to prove Mormonism to be everything that it claimed to be. And so I will readily admit that my heart wasn’t in the right place. I did not have this humble or childlike faith when I began this process, however, that didn’t matter because God’s love for me is greater than my foolishness, and his pursuit of me when I was lost is greater than my blindness. And so it’s like I was lost and dead and blind. But I didn’t know it. I thought that I had what I needed to my religion. And it wasn’t until I went to the Word of God and began to read it as a Mormon missionary that God slowly started to open my eyes. And so you gave a great analogy, like the layers of an onion being peeled away. And it was a very gradual process. So to give you kind of a timeline. Once I received that challenge, I started reading the New Testament daily, and I did that for the rest of my mission, which was about 20 months now. In that time frame of the conclusion of my mission, I read the New Testament twelve times from beginning to end. Wow, very fervently daily and just pouring myself into the Word of God. And it was a very slow process of being washed by the water of the Word of God to where I finally got to the end of my mission, had three weeks remaining of my two year mission commitment and the scales and the blindness that have been upon my eyes my entire life were finally washed away by the power of the Word of God. And by the simplicity of the gospel message. Someone much wiser than me said was that you can’t find anyone who just read the Bible and turn out to be X, Jehovah Witness, Mormon and Catholic. They just read the Bible. They will never come out with some sort of label. They can come out Christian, which is why, but they won’t come out all these other denominations.

So that’s great. Yeah, that’s definitely great. So Micah, pin it down for us. What do you think exactly where those barriers? Maybe, like a bulleted format. What were those barriers that were actually preventing you from being saved? And then tell us exactly when did those barriers and how were they actually removed? Yeah. So I think the first and probably the biggest barrier is I would go to the word of God two Corinthians where Paul says that the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers from seeing the light of the gospel, the glory of Christ. I think first and foremost, for any lost or unsafe person, there is a spiritual blindness, right that has been put upon them. It’s a veil of darkness. And so for me, I had that spiritual blindness that had been put upon me through my religion. I think the second thing was myself. I think the biggest barrier to my own Salvation was myself because I had grown up in this workspace mentality where I was putting my faith and trust in me and my goodness in my righteousness, in my works. And I think that the result of that oftentimes it’s generally two things, and it’s two things that are on the opposite end of the spectrum. Number one, it either brings total brokenness and humility, or it breeds in us pride. And you see that in the Pharisees in Scripture. And so for me, I was a prideful person in a lot of ways. I was a phariseeful individual because I considered myself in greater standing with God than other people because of my good deeds. And so in reading the Bible and having the Gospel presented to me, I actually had a hard time grasping that God did not love me because of me, in fact, loved me in spite of me Amen right that I was not a good person or righteous. I was actually God’s enemy, and I was dead in my sins and dead in my trespasses. And yet God’s love for me was so great that it was demonstrated in Jesus Christ who died for me while I was still a sinner. And so I think to have to remove that pride, that human nature, to believe that I’m contributing something to God, that God loves me because of all these things that I’m doing and because of my faithfulness to the Commandments, and to realize that no, all those things, they stand before God as filthy rags, and that all God is asking for me is to turn and to trust in Christ, to fix my eyes on Him, and to believe that Jesus alone is the only hope for my Salvation. And so the other barriers for me, I think the other big thing was culture, the culture of Mormonism. I don’t know if people truly understand. It’s not like going from a Calvary Chapel to a Baptist Church. It’s not just a Church you attend on a Sunday morning. It’s a cultural identity, and that culture defines you and your relationship, your reputation, your education, all these things are rooted in that religious identity. And so a profession of faith or a knowledge of Christ that brings you outside of that religion. Just like Martin Luther with Catholicism, it means losing everything and so I think that once I even came to the knowledge of the gospel of Christ revealed to the word of God, it was then having to take up my cross and follow Jesus and recognize that that was going to come at a cost? And did I trust that what I had in Christ was all sufficient for me? And was I willing to give up the only life that I had ever known for the abundance of life that could only be found in Christ.

Tell us about that cost, because I know that eventually your mom and dad and siblings got saved as well, including your lovely wife. Tell us about that cost. How much did you lose in terms of fellowship with friends, family, and how did you actually, you didn’t win them. But how did you actually present the gospel to your parents know that they actually left the Mormon Church as well? Tell us about that experience. Yeah. So when I came to saving faith at the end of my Mormon mission, I was in a very difficult situation because I was representing a religion and a faith that I no longer believed. And so through different circumstances, I was led to have this opportunity to be able to publicly share my faith and my testimony in front of my Mormon missionary peers. And my testimony was that Jesus was all that I needed and that I had found my Salvation in Him alone and that I was secure in my eternal relationship with God through the shed blood of Christ, not through any religion or works ordinances. And so that testimony ended up putting me in a situation where I had to face my Mormon leadership. And I was questioned about my newfound faith. And so that ended up leading my mission to be terminated three weeks early. And so that was when I was shamefully put on a plane and sent back home. Well, I couldn’t hide what was going on. My Mormon leadership had already called my parents. So I was kind of thrust into a situation where I had to share the gospel with my parents, my siblings, my family, because I had come to this point where I had come to faith as a Mormon missionary, shared my newfound faith, and then that faith was made public, and so I couldn’t hide it anymore. So I had no choice. And so I was put on a plane and had to go back and meet with my Mormon leadership in Utah, meet with my parents, and I’m grateful for that. It’s like God. In a sense, he shoved me off of a cliff and made me trust that he was going to sustain me. And so the Grace of God did sustain me. When I went back to Utah, I met with my parents and my siblings, and I told them that I had been reading the Bible and that I had come to learn through the Bible that faith in Jesus alone was the only way to be justified before God, not through any works, not through belonging to a certain religion or organization, not through any ordinances, but faith in Christ alone, and that Jesus was everything and all that we would ever need to be reconciled to God. And my encouragement to them was the same thing that the Baptist pastor had encouraged me to do. And that was just to approach the Word of God, to read the Bible like a child. And so I gave that challenge to my parents and to my siblings. And at that point previous to my mission, I had been a student at Brigham Young University. Well, now that I had left the Mormon Church, I could no longer continue on in my education. I knew that my life and my future was not in Utah. I couldn’t be that culture of Mormonism. I could never go back to that after having professed faith in Jesus Christ alone. And so certainly my relationships with my family members initially were severed. My relationships with basically all of my friends, even to this day. I mean, it’s been nearly 16 years, and the majority of my friends in my previous life of Mormonism have no relationship with me. And really every aspect of that lifestyle was severed and cut off and really started my life all over. That’s what we do, right. We’re born again and the old passed away, and the new had come. And so all of those things that, once you know, meant the world to me, like Paul said, I now consider those things as lost compared to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ. And so even at the loss of all those things, I trusted in the Word of God, I trusted in the promise that God’s Word does not return void. And I had that hope in me that God could save my family as he had saved me, because I was a first hand witness of the power of Scripture, of simply sitting down and reading the Bible and through the power of the Holy Spirit working in me, that my life was transformed, that I was given a new heart and a new spirit and made a new creation in Christ.

My girlfriend the neat story with her as we had dated in high school. She was also very devout Mormon. And then when I was a Mormon missionary in Florida, she was going to school at BYU. Well, the Mormon missionary system is very rigid, and it’s very strict. And so the ways in which you’re allowed to communicate with other people is very regimented. And so I was only allowed to call my parents twice a year, and I could only email them once a week. Now my girlfriend actually, the only way that I was allowed to communicate with her was through handwritten letters, so we weren’t allowed to talk on the phone or even email. And so it was neat because every week, I would sit down at my desk and I would pull out a piece of paper and I would start to write to her what God was doing in my life. And so I started to share the gospel with her, tell her the things that I was learning through the word of God. And I encouraged her to read the Bible as well. Well, because of that challenge, she ended up getting saved while she was a student at BYU. And so she kind of got saved simultaneously. And then when I got off my mission, she and I actually moved back to Florida, which is where I served my mission. And we eloped. And so we started our lives as these brand new young baby Christians, but firmly grounded on the rock of Christ and very uncertain as to what our lives are going to look like and what the future held. But knowing the one who held our future. And so that was where it all began. And as you mentioned, God began to work individually in the lives of my family members as well. My older brother, Matt, came to Salvation. He was a student at BYU. He’s now a full time member of Adams Road. My younger sister, Katie, also came to saving faith in Christ, and then my parents through a very I would describe it as a very tumultuous process of having their faith challenged to the word of God, but coming to see the gospel in a way that they could no longer deny. And so they both came to saving faith in Jesus. My mother actually resigned her tenured position at BYU, and they walked away. They left Utah, left all of their friends, their community, their culture, and moved to Florida and in their mid 50s and started all over and our faithful followers of Christ and have started their own Ministry and been all over the world sharing the gospel of Christ as well, all to the glory of God.

Amen I’m telling you I know that my God, my savior, can do this, but this testimony is just amazing because it blows your way down. Yeah, because my family is not saved yet. And I’ve been saved for 20 plus years. And it just amazing just to see that. Hey, that God didn’t just save you, but you challenge your parents, you challenge your siblings and all of them get saved. That’s definitely amazing. Definitely a powerful testimony to the glory of God.

So before we go into this break, Mike, tell us about your book. I see your author Passport to Heaven. Tell us about that book and how we can get it. Yeah. The Passport to Heaven was just released in June of this year, and it’s my life’s work, in a sense. I started working on it immediately after my Mormon mission in January of 2006, and so 15 years later, it was finally published. And so it’s really my detailed testimony of the events and the people and the situations that God placed me in throughout the course of my two year mission that ultimately led me to the precipice of His Grace. And so it’s not about me as a person. It’s just about how the Grace of God saves the lost. And I was one of those lost and the Grace of God saved me. And so it’s just really the beginning of my mission to the end and the things that happened in my life, the personal nature of God. And I think that that’s something that’s often lost is that God loves us, and he’s a personal God. And when we can see that He’s so deliberate in the ways in which he reaches us and loves us and manifests that love through different people and circumstances in our life, and how all those things ultimately brought me to the foot of the cross of Christ and brought me to the word of God, where the truth of the gospel was revealed. And so I wrote it in a way that is as compassionate and understanding as possible to the Mormon people. And it’s an accusation that I get simply because my testimony is that I left the Mormon Church and Mormons see that as offensive. But my Ministry personally is a heart of love. The exact same thing that Paul said in Romans Ten. My heart’s desire for them is that they may be saved, and I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. And so being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes that is my heart for the Mormon people. And so I tried to write it in just as compassionate, as gentle, as respectful, in a way as possible, but not in a way that compromises the gospel of Christ. And to say here’s a young, passionate, sincere, zealous, God centered Mormon missionary. And this is the truth that I learned. And this is the power of the word of God. And this is the true gospel that saves. A lot of folks believe that when God saves Saul, he didn’t change his passion. He didn’t change his vision. He just pointed in a different direction. And that’s definitely what I’m seeing in you. Yeah, definitely. Great. How can we get a hold of this book? Amazon to your website? Yes, you can get it on Amazon. You can get on Christianbook. Com. Books a million. Really? Any audible, any place where books are sold, you can get passport to heaven. Great. All right.

You’re listening to the Removing Barriers podcast. We sit down with Micah Wilder, and we are finding out how were his barriers removed. We’ll be right back. Antivirus software protects you from malware. But to protect your Privacy and security on the web, you need a virtual private network or VPN? Did you know that Ivacy offers an easy to use VPN app for each of your favorite devices, from Windows, Mac and smartphones to smart TVs, tablets and browser extensions and even gaming consoles? Get Ivacy for your choice of devices to secure your connection, browse with Privacy and access content from anywhere in the world. Go to Ivacy. Com or click the link in the show notes. Use coupon code removing barriers for a 20% discount.

Two Corinthians 517 says, therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new Micah after Salvation, what changes were evident in your life? I think the biggest one was trusting God, the fruit of the recognition that my Salvation was secure in Christ. And the amazing thing about that is one of the things that I think Mormons. I was taught this growing up and that’s that the Grace of the Bible or the Grace that Christians believe in is a cheap Grace. This Grace is essentially because I know that I’m forgiven. It’s a license for me to sin. And what’s incredible is that the gospel has the opposite effect, right? The love of God and the depth of a human being understanding that love. It doesn’t create in us a spirit of rebellion. It creates in us a spirit of love, of faithfulness, of obedience to the God who loved us when we didn’t deserve to be loved, and the God who forgave us when we didn’t deserve to be forgiven. So I think the biggest thing was literally a transformation of the mind of the heart of not living life with this fear or uncertainty as to whether or not I was forgiven or I was right with God, or I had done enough to prove my worthiness to God. But to have this internal peace that only comes from the gospel of Christ, and to have this assurance of knowing that even in the wretchedness of my sin and of my flesh, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And so after Paul’s lament of the flesh in Romans seven, who will deliver me from this body of death. Well, it all leads to that proclamation that we have this freedom in Christ. So I think that was the biggest thing for me was just having peace with God through the blood of the cross, and then to see that begin to manifest itself. I’ll tell you the first thing, even as a Mormon missionary, even when I was undergoing this process was I wanted to tell other people right. I wanted other people to come to know this Jesus. And so from that day forward to this day to the end of my life, my greatest desire every day is that other people will come to know the saving Grace of God in Christ. And so just this desire to go out and proclaim the gospel, to love people, to serve people and ultimately to tell them about the hope and Salvation that are found in Jesus. I think that was the most radical change in my life is that it changed my motivation. I guess that’s the best way to summarize it. It changed my purpose, my desires, like everything that I do as a father, as a husband, in business, like everything is because of the gospel and for the gospel. It’s not a side note. It’s not something that is an afterthought. It is that which drives my heart and soul as a human being.

Do you think the way your barriers were removed would be effective in reaching someone in the similar upbringing, similar culture like you are? Oh, absolutely. I think one of the biggest barriers of not just Mormons, but Jehovah’s Witnesses, Catholics, people who are in work based righteousness is the barrier of their sin and their uncertainty as to whether or not they have done what they are required to do according to the standard of their religion. And so one of the main focuses an emphasis that we have in Ministry in approaching Mormons or Muslims or Catholics or whatever is to focus on the saving Grace of God in Christ, to focus on forgiveness, like what is forgiveness? And how are we forgiven? And did you know that you can know right now that you can have the guarantee of your right standing with God independent of any religious system or authority, but totally dependent on Christ? I mean, like John said that I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. That’s not something that I had as a Mormont, and that’s not something that a lot of people who are in work based religions have. And I think that being able to remove that barrier, right. That burden of religion, of works of man made righteousness and just to be able to trust in Christ, that is the message that those people need.

You described your work in Adams Road being primarily a musical one. You make this wonderful music that is Bible centered. You literally put the Scriptures to music, and you put it out there for people to enjoy. And it’s a means of evangelism as well. Could you describe other things that you’re doing personally in the area of evangelism to help remove the barriers that you face as a Mormon young men? Yeah. So the other thing that we couple with our music when we go out on the road is we share testimonies. And so we preach the gospel of Christ. But we do it specifically through the stories that God has written in our lives and through that we’ve been able to reach, we’ve had videos and other things that have reached millions and millions of people all over the world. And so that’s been an effective thing. But the amazing thing about the gospel. And here’s the heart of a believer, whether you’re on stage on a platform of public Ministry or whether you’re in line at Walmart that our heart is to share the gospel right to anybody anywhere. In fact, I flew to the funeral of a beloved brother who passed away this weekend and at the airport had a long and fruitful discussion with a Muslim man. And I shared with him the gospel encouraged him to read the Bible, told him about how Jesus had changed my life. And you could see the impact that made on him. And he told me he was going to go read the New Testament, that he was curious about the nature of this Jesus. And so everywhere we go, we’re evangelists, we’re ministers, we’re missionaries of the Gospel of Christ. And so I think through that through social media, through videos, through music, through touring, through our own Ministry here in Florida, where we own and operate a historic bed and breakfast, a hotel where we are tent makers in a sense as Paul was. And so we have the opportunity through the hospitality industry every day to share the gospel with people, to share the gospel with our community and just to be ready for those opportunities as God gives them to us. Sounds great.

All right, Micah, we’re going to go into a little bit of fun sections. Let’s get some of your favorites. So we started out what is your favorite script of verse? I would say my favorite verse is John 635, and it’s Jesus speaking. And he says, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. And so I think that’s my favorite. There’s a theme of our Ministry, and it’s Jesus is enough. And I think that Scripture very adequately summarizes the sufficiency found in Christ alone.

What’s your favorite biblical historical account? Some people will call them Bible stories, but we don’t like to call them stories because it has a connotation of being a fable or a myth. We believe everything in the Scripture is absolutely true, and it actually happened. So can you tell us what would be your favorite biblical historical account? I would probably say the conversion of Saltars when he was on the road to Damascus. Not surprising. The risen Lord appeared to him and changed his life. And I see so many parallels to the story of Saul and to my own. And so I’m so moved by what God did in his life. But then Paul’s faithfulness. What did he do with the gospel? How is he a steward over that transformational experience and that’s that he dedicated his entire life to the sake of the gospel, ultimately to the sacrifice of his own flesh. And that’s the type of faith that I want to have as a Christian. What would you say is the most convicting Scripture verse to you? Well, I think one of them. That’s a good question, because there are several. Give us a couple as a husband. I would say Paul’s exhortation to the Ephesians. Husbands love your wives as Christ’s love the Church. That’s a serious standard that you and I are called to live as husbands. And a lot of people on the outside, non Christians. They look at the Bible and say women are persecuted in Christianity and they’re submissive and all this and they’re like, yeah, but look what the responsibilities of the husband. Look what that relationship is built on. And that is agape love of the husband, serving and loving. The wife is Christ who served and loved the Church and gave himself for her. So I think that one for me as a husband. And then even later on, as a father. Fathers don’t provoke your children to anger, which I think can be easy to do. And the way that we respond to our children in Godliness, I think, is so important. I think those are two very convicting scriptures because they’re so applicable real life every day as a husband and a father, you have those challenges, and we are called scripturally to live them out in a certain way. Amen,

what would you say is the most comforting Scripture verse to you? I know it may be cliche, but I love Psalm 23. And the reason why that’s so important to me is that theologically and Mormonism David right. King David of Israel. He is not saved because of his in with Bathsheba and his murder of Uriah, the Hittite. He is not eternally in the presence of God. And so that’s what I was taught about David was that he was not forgiven. Well, when I read the Bible, one of the most amazing things about the story of David is that he was forgiven, that David is a picture of God forgiving someone who doesn’t deserve to be forgiven. He was a picture of Israel. And then, in a bigger sense, a picture of the Church. And so in Isaiah, we have this promise where God promises the shermerses of David to Israel. And so I began to connect with that because I realized, like, wow, this character I’ve been taught my entire life who I thought wasn’t saved and wasn’t forgiven because he did these terrible things. And I realized, well, according to the higher law of Jesus, I am guilty because I’ve committed murder. If I’ve hated my brother in my heart and I’ve committed adultery, if I have lusted after a woman, therefore, I deserve the same thing. And yet as God loved and forgave David, that God has loved and forgiven me in Christ. And so Psalm 23 was actually something that I shared when I was giving that testimony as a Mormon missionary in front of my Mormon peers. And so it just kind of always had a special place in my heart.

What would you say is your favorite hymn of the fate, or you can even be one of your own composition. Yeah. I think traditionally one of my favorite hymns is how deep the Father’s love and also in Christ alone are two that I wasn’t exposed to. Christian hymns growing up, and I didn’t know Christian music. And when I was a Mormon missionary, I had somebody give me some mixtapes of Christian music. And so for the first time in my life, I was exposed to some of these songs, and in Christ alone was one of the ones on one of those CDs that I was given, and it made a profound impact on my heart.

I have one more question for you in this rapid fire fund section, but you said something that piqued my interest. I wish that you could clear up. You said that growing up, you weren’t exposed to Christian hymns, but you were raised in a very devout Mormon family. So what type of music did you grow up listening to, if not the hymns of the faith or Christian hymns? Yeah. And so to clarify, we sang hymns at Church, but they were Mormon hymns. Some of them were traditional hymns, but in fact, the Mormon Church took them and rewrote the lyrics to them. So there are actually certain melodies that we were familiar with. But they were hymns that were specific to the Mormon Church. And then even the music that we listened to was music by Mormon artists. So even though it was religious and about God, it wasn’t Christian in nature. So I never heard anything outside of Mormon hymns and Mormon music growing up, I guess, to clarify, but it’s not the true gospel. It’s not the true Jesus. And so I wouldn’t consider them Christian, right. Wow. I didn’t realize. I think I recognized that a few years ago while listening to a mum on choir on YouTube, they were singing one of these popular Christmas songs, but I did realize that the words to it was different from what I know. Yeah. And I didn’t realize that until I became a Christian, and I started attending Church, and we were singing these hens, and I’m like, Wait, I know this song, but these are the wrong lyrics. The Mormon Church had taken a lot of traditional Christian hymns, and then they had reworked the lyrics to fit Mormon doctrine or Mormon history. Wow. Fascinating. Did not realize that.

Okay. All right. So back to our fun section, the little rapid fire section here. What is your favorite giant of the faith from the Scriptures? Yeah. I would say King David, because I think that through all of the things that he did and the dishonor that he brought upon himself because of his sin, he never stopped trusting in God. And that’s my heart. I want to be a man after God’s heart. I want to love God, to pursue God, to know God. And so I think that kind of has a special connection in my heart, Amen.

Well, Micah, let’s wrap it up and tell us by sharing the Gospel, how can barriers be removed in the life of others? Well, I think that when we approach people, it doesn’t matter what background they’re from. Somebody can be an atheist, they can be a Mormon, they can be a Muslim, they can be a Jehovah’s witness, right? I mean, whatever we need to understand them, we need to love them. And with that love comes empathy. It comes compassion. And so we need to meet people’s needs in order to bring their needs to Christ. And so I think that so often we get so zealous about just wanting to witness to people that we don’t care about the people we’re witnessing to, if that makes sense. And so I think that when Pastor Benson, when other people that I met on my Mormon mission who genuinely loved me, it made an impact on my life because I could tell they were invested into me as a person. And so I was more willing, I think, to listen to them and to absorb the things that they were speaking to me. And so I think that we can become our own barrier. Sometimes let the gospel be offensive, let the gospel speak for itself. But let not us be the ones who are a stumbling block for somebody else. Let’s not be deliberately offensive in our approach to other people. But if people are going to be offended, let them be offended by truth, not by us. And so I think that’s my biggest encouragement and removing barriers is come to know the person as an individual, as an image bearer of God. And an analogy somebody gave me that stuck with me for all the years of Ministry that I’ve been in, and that’s that unsafe. People are not our enemies. They are hostages of the enemy. And so when we see them, it changes our approach. When it’s the enemy, you go in guns ablaze, and your purpose is to destroy them when they’re hostage. Your purpose is to set them free, and only Jesus can set them free. And so that’s been my approach, especially to the Mormon people, is not to be combative and to treat them as though they themselves are my enemy. But they are held captive of the enemy, the Father of all lies, and that my job is to see them as people who need to be set free, and only the Gospel of Christ can do that. Amen.

Micah, thank you for joining us on the Removing Barriers broadcast. Thank you for having me. It’s been a wonderful discussion, and I appreciate you and your Ministry. Great. Thank you for doing this, ma’am. Thank you.

Thank you for listening to get a hold of us to support this podcast or to learn more about removing barriers, go to RemovingBarriers.Net this has been the Removing Barriers podcast. We attempted to remove barriers so that we all can have a play view of the cross.