Episode 82

In this episode of the Removing Barriers podcast, we interview the mother of Micah Wilder, Dr. Lynn Wilder. Micah Wilder is a former Mormon missionary who came to faith in Christ after hearing the gospel from a Baptist pastor he was trying to convert to Mormonism. (Listen to Micah’s testimony). After coming to genuine faith, he challenged his mother to read the scriptures like a child to see God for who He is. Dr. Lynn Wilder took him up on his challenge and by God’s mercy, she encountered the true Christ and came to genuine faith. The barrier of Mormonism was a formidable one, especially since she was both a Mormon for 30 years and a tenured professor at Brigham Young University, but it was no match for the exceeding excellencies of the gospel of Christ. Join us as we find out how God tore those barriers down and how He is using her testimony to draw lost hearts to Him from all over the globe.

I was in Mormonism for 30 years before I heard the gospel. And here’s the scary thing. I had Christian family when I lived in Indiana, everybody would have said they were Christian. Recall one time when someone presented the God of Grace to me, nor the biblical gospel.

Thank you for tuning in to the Removing Barriers podcast. I’m Jay and I’m NCG, and we’re attempting to remove barriers so we can all have a clear view of the cross. This is episode 82 of the Removing Barriers podcast. And this is the 22nd in the series of how were Your Barriers Removed? And in this episode, we’ll find out how Dr. Lynn Wilder’s barriers were removed when she came to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Hi, this is Jay MCG, and I would like for you to help us remove barriers by going to Removingbarriers. Net and subscribing to receive all things Removing Barriers. If you’d like to take your efforts a bit further and help us keep the mics on, consider donating removingbarriers.net/donate removing Barriers a Clear View of the Cross

Lynn, it’s a pleasure and welcome to the Removing Barriers podcast. Thank you for what you’re doing. I like your unique approach to the gospel, talking about barriers. Yes. The premise here is that we believe that everyone either have a barrier or had a barrier to Salvation, and in order for them to be saved, I believe that those barriers need to be removed before they can have a clear view of the cross. So that’s our premise. How sad it is when religion throws up those barriers, right? Yeah, definitely. And we know you have a podcast as well Unveiling Grace. Tell us about your podcast. Oh, my. We’ve been doing this about three years, three years at Easter, actually, since I’m a former Mormon now born again. We talked to Mormons who are questioning their faith and Mormons who are willing to look at the traditional Christian option. We also interview pastors on doctrinal issues where Mormonism and traditional Christianity bump against each other. There are many of those. Yeah. And so it has become kind of a grassroots thing. We are on the radio out of Salt Lake. It’s called Unveiling Grace, named after the book that God kind of downloaded to me a few years ago. Yeah, that’s great.

Well, why don’t we get into your testimony and learn some more about your upbringing and everything? So tell us, what state or country were you born in? I was born in Wisconsin, United States of America. But my family moved to Indiana soon after that, and I spent the first 45 years of my life in Indiana. You moved to Indiana to escape the cold from Wisconsin? Yes. That’s my dad’s job, I think. What was your family like? What type of family were you born into? It was a traditional, greatest generation dad, really strong mom at home family. We went to Church every week when I was growing up, we either went to a Presbyterian or a Methodist Church. We got all dressed up, went every week. But literally I don’t recall opening the Bible in my home. So it was almost more of a cultural experience. And I’m not sure even after all those years of Church, I could have told you how one is born again or gets reconciled to a Holy God. I just didn’t know much. Yeah, sounds like the typical American around that maybe something like the 60s, 70s kind of America. We ended up in Mormonism. And here’s an interesting statistic. According to the Pew Institute, about 83% of converts into Mormonism and they knock on your door, come right out of nominal Christianity. So people like me who don’t know the word and don’t recognize something as a false Christ. That’s very interesting.

I remember recently having gone to the grocery store and these women approached me with a version of the gospel that I had never heard of before. It was obviously a false gospel, but they were so convincing and they made their arguments almost with no holes. The way they tried to connect Scripture to prove their point was obviously was so wrong because they ended up with a Christ who was a Korean man named Asung Kyung. So we know that that’s the wrong Christ, but the way that they loop their arguments together and how they had their Bible studies and everything just seems so convincing. And I can totally see how someone who does not know the word would totally be fooled and converted. Quotes convert to their faith, thinking that they are following the truth when in reality they weren’t. Is that something that happened to your parents and then your family became Mormon or how? No. Okay. It happened to me. My husband and I had been married three years. We were aged 24, and we both believed in Jesus. He’d grown up Baptist and I’d grown up mostly Presbyterian. And we just thought, if we’re going to have a family, right, we want to find a Church. So we started going to this Church in that Church. Honestly, we thought they were kind of boring. We just were not connecting. And Lindsay had just written the book Late Great Planet Earth. Now you’re probably too young for that, but it kind of started this whole interest in last day stuff, right. Even in the secular world, Mormon missionaries, if you notice their badges say the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints, Latter Day being the King James Version of last days, knocked on our door and told us they were the experts on the last day. They knew all about it and they could teach us everything we needed to know. We believe they were just another Christian sect, although they do eventually tell you that they have the fullness of the truth, so they have more truth than everybody else. And ten weeks after studying with them, we joined them. One of the main reasons I think I joined Mormonism and my husband was a teaching of theirs called Families Forever. They teach that you can go to a Mormon temple if you’re a righteous Mormon and be sealed in marriage for this life and for the next life, and that you will have your biological family as long as they’re worthy and live all the Commandments with you in the next life. Especially a lot of people from broken families or people who have this heart for family. I mean, I didn’t have children yet, and I wanted to have children, and I had this heart for family. It’s a very appetizing teaching to think. Right. That family is so important that you can always be together. But of course, I didn’t understand the Christian family much bigger than a small biological family and that we’ll all be together in the next life. But that’s a very appealing teachings that the Mormon missionary spring.

Is there anything else that was attractive to you from a performance based religion? Oh, you should ask me that question. My parents had German heritage. Right. Very kind of rigid and linear thinkers follow the rules. And so, yes, all of the performance based stuff that Mormonism does, I felt comforted to know that I could know how to be right with God and that my own work mattered. Unfortunately, that’s what they teach you. Right. As a performance based religion. And so I know it’s an odd thing to say, but there’s something comforting to think that you know what the rules are and that you can tick off the rules and that somehow then that will make you acceptable to God. Yeah. You see, it’s a lot of religions, because even in some churches that preach the true gospel, sometimes they even take it to another level of legalism, where they put a lot of emphasis on your works and your performance rather than on the finished work of Christ. So you’re sitting a lot of churches that just mamonism, of course. So the Grace message is for a lot of people. Right. And the Adams Road Ministry is typically in 100 churches a year. And that Grace message is very well received and not always understood. So several years ago, I wrote this book called Unveiling Grace, and not only did we have converts from legalistic places like Catholicism or 7th Day Adventism or something like that, but I had converts from Islam. Wow. So people were connecting in their minds the whole idea now that if you had to perform and you thought your performance mattered and that somehow added what Jesus had done on the cross, that was a false state, that it was all about Jesus. It was all about Grace. It was all about what he had done. And that message resonates a lot of places. Right. Because the true gospel is the gospel of Grace. And so Satan swings it all kinds of other ways. And makes it anti Grace.

Yes. So the devil definitely has a way of presenting the Falls Virgin to look pretty much like the real one. And I’m surprised that even a Muslim will read a book, get to as Christians and be converted because of that. That’s just really amazing because I wouldn’t think of reaching out to Muslim that way. And I didn’t know what to do with conference. Right. That certainly wasn’t my background. But it’s either Grace or it’s not Grace. Right. And when it’s not Grace and people read about Grace, it’s amazing what happens in their hearts. I look at it this way. So within maybe 19 years after Jesus died, Paul had to write the Book of Galatians. Why? Because Paul had been traveling around preaching the gospel of Grace, and someone else would come right behind him and say, oh, no, you have to be circumcised. You have to become a Jew before you can become a believer. You have to do this and this. Right. And then Paul would have to go back to those places or send Epistles to them going, wait, this is the gospel. This isn’t the gospel. This is the gospel. So all those Epistles of the New Testament, I see them in this framework. This is the gospel. This is the simple gospel. This is not the gospel. Right. And yet in today’s churches, we don’t pay a whole lot of attention, I don’t think, to what is the gospel and what isn’t the gospel. We don’t want to offend people. And so we let them say, you say you’re a believer. Okay. I accept that. Whatever. Rather than going through and doing what Paul had to do some of the difficult work to say, okay, if you believe this, that wouldn’t line up with what Jesus taught. Right. And it is important that we have those kind of discussions and that we separate out those kind of issues. Yeah.

Talk about the true gospel before you receive that. True gospel before Salvation. Tell us a little bit more about your upbringing. I know you said you went to Church a little bit and you were nominal Christians in Methodist Church. Tell us a little bit more about the upbringing. And how does that translate into meeting your husband and seeking another Church? I came from a pretty strong family. There was no abuse per se, very rule following folks, very ethical folks. My dad had a good job, and I think a lot of people want Jesus, but only how he fits into your life. And you don’t want him to get in the way. Right. You don’t want a 24/7. You just want to. Well, on Sundays I’ll do this or I’ll give a little to the poor or let me decide. Basically your own God. You want a Genie that they can Rob and summons at their own will. Yeah. But you want to basically be in charge, right? You want to control. You want to make your own decisions. And Mormonism offered that for me when they came to the door. They actually teach that if you’re righteous and you’re male, you can earn your way to Godhood. So they would say God the Father was once a man who earned his Godhood, then Jesus was once a man who earned his Godhood. The Holy Spirit did the same. And any righteous Mormon man who then is worthy enough to go to the Mormon Temple, does all the right rituals, keeps the laws and ordinances of the Mormon Church, and works his way up in the next life, can earn Godhood. And so it really is all about you. It’s all about your works. And there’s something human in us that wants to believe that we have that kind of power and control and that we matter, right? It’s why people do New Age. It’s all about me and what I can do for the universe. And the universe does something back for me that is false religion at its worst.

You know, I’m listening to you talk about just this natural human tendency for people to want to be in control or they want to feel like they’ve done something in order to accomplish whatever feat. And I was thinking of the space shuttle program that was in effect from goodness until 2010. And there’s an astronaut that said he’s trying to describe what it was like to be an astronaut on the shuttle as it was taking off to go to the International Space Station. And as he was walking up to the shuttle just how massive it was, and he was just overwhelmed. And he realized eyes, I’m about to sit on the equivalent of an atomic bomb and write it into outer space. And he said as he sat down and all of the attendants help strapped him in and everything there’s writing on the wall that says warning, if anything should happen, do this, that or the other, these are the steps you should take. And he realized how absolutely useless that was. And they only put that there to make you feel as though you had control, because once those rocket boosters go off, you have no control until you get out into outer space. It was so funny when he said it. He said, they put that there so that I could have something to read as I die because there’s nothing that I can do if anything goes wrong, there’s really nothing I can do. This is it. Well, who wants to accomplish a mission if they come to grips with that reality? Who can accomplish their mission if they acknowledge that reality? So they put the writing on the wall there to make you feel as though you have some sort of control, to make you feel as though there’s something that you can do when in reality you can’t. All of these religions that we’re talking about and all of these different things we’re talking about are very much the same thing. They want to give you that sense of, if you do this, you can earn this. If you do that, you can become that. But the gospel is something completely different. And it sounds like when you heard them present Mormonism to you that drew you, it compelled you. It was something that you were very interested in, and you became Mormon, obviously, which is part of your testimony. But at some point, you heard the gospel and everything changed. Can you describe that moment in your life for us?

I was in Mormonism for 30 years before I heard the gospel. And here’s the scary thing. I had Christian family when I lived in Indiana. Everybody would have said they were Christian. I don’t recall one time when someone presented the God of Grace to me nor the biblical gospel. And so I never heard it, and I never got it. When did I hear it? My husband and I were very active in Mormonism. Within six months, we had leadership positions. And then it built up this pride in me, like, oh, you’re doing the right thing. God must be pleased with you. He’s giving you this important calling, right? In 99, I finished a doctorate and ended up being hired at Brigham Young University. Now it is owned and operated by the Mormon Church. So you have to be worthy enough to have a temple recommend. You have to meet all these wonderful standards. And so what that does is give you pride. Humans don’t realize we want to accomplish, but then when we give ourselves credit for doing all those things, we think we’re better than others who haven’t done those things. Again, this is all contrary to the biblical gospel. I now realize, since I surrendered to Christ, that I rest in Christ. And if there are any good works to be done, he brings them and he does them. He might do them through me as a vessel, but they’re only good works. When they’re God’s works, they’re not good works because I made up some list and I’ve decided I’m going to do all these good things. It’s a very different way to live, to surrender to this righteous merciful forgiving grateful Master, make him your life, and then allow him to mold that life instead of you being so righteously in control. And of course, as a professor, that’s all we ever did was promote ourselves. And I was a Journal editor, and you go to these conferences, and it’s all about promoting ourselves. And then 30 years in, God ripped my heart out.

How all three of our Mormon sons had served Mormon missions. The first one in Russia after the Wall came down, the second one in Denmark. Our third son was headed to Mexico City. And I don’t know if you know, in Mormonism, you’re like more righteous if the Prophet sends your kids internationally, right? So we’re feeling like, oh, we must be doing all the right things. Micah is supposed to go to Mexico City, and while he’s in the missionary training center out of the blue, his lung collapses and he’s in the hospital. And the Mormon Church decides it’s going to be too iffy to send him to Mexico City. It’s too high up. The medical stuff isn’t good enough. In the case of lung collapses again. So they sent him to the middle of the Bible Belt, Florida, and he begins to knock on the doors of evangelicals and try to teach them the Mormon gospel. Now you probably remember from Micah’s testimony that Christians didn’t treat the Mormon missionaries very nice. Most of them kind of knew Mormonism is outside of the body and it’s kind of weird, but they don’t know much about it, right. They just know to stay away from it. And so he said people threw bottles at his head. Somebody tried to run him over in their truck one time. They, of course, slammed doors in their face. Tell them they’re going to hell, get off my doorstep. Now imagine being a non believer and having a heart for God and then having Christians treat you like that. So people always ask me what works right with Mormons, what works with nonbelievers. Well, certainly not slamming them and telling them how awful they are, right. Certainly you’re going to have to build a relationship and it needs to be long term. Whether they come to the gospel or not, you’re going to need to love them enough to confide in them, let them confide in you, pray with them, and then ask the Christian, your mouth should be peppered with God’s gospel. Season of Grace. Yeah. When do we ever tell somebody something that I’ve been praying for this for months. And then God showed up and did this amazing thing, right? We tend to keep those things private. And yet how is anybody like me when I was in Mormon, I’m going to hear the gospel. If we don’t ever hear these amazing histories, these testimonies, these stories of who God is and what he can do in a life. Mormons need that. They are in bondage. They are in bondage to a false faith. And many people are who believe in performance based religion.

So you send your son to Orlando at the moment mission, of course, if you want to hear Micah Wilder’s testimony, that was episode 68. But describe for us the first time you came to full realization of your sin because you kind of stopped when your son was in Orlando. So pick up from there. And when did you come to a full realization of your things? First I realized something was happening to my son. He could only send an email home once a week. And in those emails, they started being filled with biblical scripture. Now Mormons have the Book of Mormon, which is supposed to be perfect. They believe the Bible is corrupt so typically, Mormons aren’t going to be sending you biblical scripture. They’re going to be sending you Book of Mormon doctrine and covenants, Pearl of great price scripture, the Mormon scripture that’s perfect. And so something seemed to be changing in this young man’s heart. He started in his emails challenging us to read the Bible. Then he ends up giving his life to Jesus on his Mormon mission, getting in great trouble with the Mormon Church. Now we parents back home get this phone call that our son has a spirit of the devil in him and that he’s an Antichrist and that they are sending him home in disgrace and they eventually try to excommunicate him. Now my husband and I, having come from biblical faith, are totally confused because we think we’re just another Christian sect. So he’s professing a God of Grace, and that’s a problem for you. So much of a problem, you’re going to kick him out of the Church and make him an example. That was the first time it ever occurred to me in 30 years that the gospel I was following was anti Grace. Right. And that they knew it and that it was so serious to them that they just could not allow that. Well, Micah ends up getting kicked off his mission three weeks before the end gets sent home. Church leaders call him right in, and they’re yelling at him and calling him an Antichrist. Oh, my gosh. It was the most horrible experience for we parents, I would imagine. And so that the Mormon Church wouldn’t excommunicate him, we literally within 48 hours put him on a plane and send him back to Florida, where he already had a job to manage a hotel. And before he got on the plane to leave Utah, these poor, confused parents, he begged us, mom and dad just opened the word of God, particularly the New Testament, and read it like a child.

It was the same challenge he had been given by a Baptist pastor to just read the word and see what God had to say because we love the kid and because we didn’t know how to support him. And we’re totally confused and realized, right, if this headed us all out of Mormonism, everything would change. I would lose my job. We had another son that was about to start his senior year at Brigham Young. Everything was going to be turned upside down, and we had to get the Sprite. So because he challenged us because we knew he left the Lord and he was profoundly changed somehow, I began to read the New Testament opened with the Book of John. In the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God. Okay, I think that’s Jesus and the Word was God. Wait, Jesus wasn’t God from the beginning. He worked his way to Godhood right there. The Holy Spirit began to open my eyes. This is not the same gospel. The Book of John tells who God is, right? What the nature of God is, where he came from, how you find Salvation. And literally, by the time I finished the Book of John, I knew this was not the same gospel. In fact, the other thing I realized by reading the New Testament, which said things like, God doesn’t live in temples made by human hands. My husband and I had worked in a temple, a Mormon temple, for ten years. Right. This was not the same gospel, and this was not the same God. That was the thing that blew me. Wow. This is not the same God. This is not the same Jesus. And so when you have those kind of in your faith contradictions, there’s a decision that’s laid out before you. It’s kind of like when you present the gospel to somebody, it’s not like they can turn around and ignore it. They could, but they heard it. And at that point, there’s a decision, right? Either I’m going to turn around and ignore it, I’m going to look into it, or I’m going to give my life to Jesus. And, boy, I was so convicted.

But the weird thing that began to happen was I could not put the Bible down. I was so hungry to learn about this Jesus of the Bible and how it was you got reconciled to him. One of the things I was not taught in Mormonism was that man was evil. Mormons do not believe in original sin. They do not believe that humans are born in sin. We are born in Mormonism, a child of God. And you can’t sin till age eight, and then you have to be baptized so you can keep all your sins under wraps. Don’t they have kids? Oh, my God, page two. They can scream, they can tantrum, they can lie right in your face, right? Of course. So I realized, too, that this was a gospel of broken, diseased men in a world that needed a savior. Right? Desperately needed a savior. You don’t need yourself to tick your list, but you need a savior. And ten months of just frantically reading the Bible. Here’s the funny thing. As soon as I started reading the Bible, everything began to change. There’s this process that happens with this washing by the water of the word, right? All of a sudden I didn’t want to go to work at Brigham Young, which is funny. I used to always love to get up early and be the last one to leave. I didn’t care about makeup. I know that’s a weird thing. I didn’t care what I looked like in Mormonism. It was really big deal. Your outward appearance, right. And I began to change by wanting to be with not the same people. The same people didn’t attract me anymore. And after ten months, I realized different gospel, different God. This God was so much bigger. I laid face down on this ugly green shag carpet one night, and I simply said these words, I’m yours, save me. I did not know that was in the Bible. Seven years later, my son in law is reading Psalm 119 and says, Bob, the words you spoke to Jesus are right here in the Bible. Oh, man, this is an amazing God. But my life just changed. It just changed. I saw things differently. It was as if I had more brilliant colors. I mean, it was that before and after for me. But I would say the number one thing was I just could not put the Bible down. Amen. We do workshops now on how to witness to Mormons at different churches. And Christians will say, well, what’s a silver bullet? What brings a Mormon to Christ? And I’ll say the word of God? And they’ll say, oh, that doesn’t work. Do you not know how powerful right? Do you not know that the Holy Spirit of the living God works in this book? Do you not know that Jesus called himself truth, that he called himself the word, and that this is his word and that this is what brings people to Christ? Right. And it’s amazing to me how a lot of Christians don’t have that powerful testimony of the word, but certainly the Wilder family came to faith by simply seeing what God had to say about things and then surrendering to it.

So definitely, as you talk about how the scripture kind of bring you to that point, what first came to my mind is when the Bible says that the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two of you. So that’s definitely describe how the Lord kind of cut you in such a way and bring you to that realization of your sin. Tell me, what barriers do you think maybe in, like, a bullet point format, what barriers do you think that were dear that were preventing you from seeing the true gospel, seeing the cross of Christ? Clearly, one of the most insidious things about believing Mormonism was that I was taught not to trust the word of God. This is a very serious error on the part of false Christ. This pits yourself directly against the true gospel and directly against the true God. And Mormonism isn’t the only one that does that. Right? You have JWS, you have Scientologists, you have all kinds of interesting kind of religious folk who take the Bible or take the name of Jesus and then use it for their own power and wealth and control and whatever they’re using it for. But one of the most insidious barriers certainly was that I was taught not to trust the word of God. Another one I would say was that I believed in Mormonism, that I had the truth, and I believed I had Jesus. I didn’t know I had a different Jesus. I didn’t know I had a different truth. And so because I had those things, I wasn’t looking for them. I didn’t think I needed them and I wasn’t hungry for them. So a lot of Christians just want to say, well, leave Mormons alone. They’re really nice people. And they say they believe in Jesus. These folks believe in other gospel and they have a different Jesus. And they are in bondage. And they’re as in bondage as an atheist or anyone who doesn’t profess at all to believe in Jesus. In fact, I think this is the most insidious kind of bondage because they believe they have a way to Salvation. They believe they have Jesus. And both of those things are lies. They are not true. And I just beg Christians to care about that.

You might find it interesting that most of the time we were Mormons, we did not call ourselves Christians. Christians were lesser. We actually called Christians Gentiles. Wow. Mormons were the true Jews. Right. And Mormons had the only truth. Mormon started saying we’re Christians, too, maybe 15 years ago, about the time I believe they were grooming Romney to run for President. So I think they knew that within the Republican Party, which was full of evangelicals, that if the evangelicals did not see Mormonism as within the body, that they would not support him politically. Right. And of course, the Mormons are anxious to get a Mormon President. In fact, they have a prophecy called the White Horse prophecy that they will have a President at some point. Mormons have put up 25 men for President over the years. The original Joseph Smith ran, Brigham Young ran, Romney’s father ran in 68. And then Romney’s probably gotten the closest. So now Christians tend to think that they’re Christian, too, because they say they are. But in most of the history of Mormonism, they did not want to be aligned with Christians. They were above them. They had the truth and Christians did not. That’s interesting you said that because I remember I was speaking to two mom and young men at the door. And one of the things they emphasized and they tried to drill into me was that we believe the same thing. I’m like comparing scriptures and what they believe. I’m like. But I realized that in order for me to show them that we didn’t believe the same thing, we need to start defining the terms because they use terms like Salvation and faith and belief. And I’m like, what do you mean when you say these terms? Because I’m hearing something different. Definitely when you say that. And that’s when the conversation can take a turn. Because if you don’t define your words, then you can simply say we believe the same thing because we use the same words. Thank you. I’m so glad to hear you say that. Mormons use the exact same religious words as Christians do that come out of the Bible? Most of them, but they all have different meanings. I don’t believe I’ve ever found one that had the same meaning. Here’s an example. Grace, right. Christians believe that Grace is unmerited favor something God gives us that I don’t deserve. Right. The Mormon definition of Grace is an enabling power that God gives you so that you can live the Commandments so that you can work your way. That’s not Grace at all. That’s Antichrist. And their atonement happened in the garden of Gethsemane didn’t happen on the cross. So even when they say, oh, Jesus, atone for my sins, you’ll have to say, So where did that atonement happen? And tell me about that. And what did that atonement do for you? Right. If they’re using words like Salvation, Mormons have three different heavens and they can talk about the lower heaven and ignore the upper heaven, then things are different. Right. The way you get there. And Christians often don’t know those things. And so you are exactly right. I think this is true with anyone, Christian or not. Right. If you’re trying to have a religious biblical conversation, you need to ask, tell me what you mean by that. Because for one thing, if you’re trying to bring people to Christ, you need to know them well enough to know what they struggle with and where their points of vulnerability are, that they might be open to hearing the gospel. Right. Instead of just letting it go in one ear and out the other and making assumptions, you have to truly listen and truly understand. Yeah, definitely. And that’s exactly what we call barriers here in removing barriers, because that barrier that’s preventing them from seeing that cross clearly. It could be the emotions, whatever they were taught as a kid, whatever it may be, as you so clearly explain it, you put the hammer right on the nail head because that barrier can be dead for years. And sadly, some folks die without ever having that barrier removed for them to see the cross clearly. Oh, you’re so right.

The third barrier for me is that no Christians ever told me the gospel. I actually went through a time after I got saved, and I’m so thrilled with this Jesus in this new life where I turned around with a little anger, like, why didn’t anybody ever tell me, right? Why didn’t you tell me? Did you not love me enough? Were you so worried that it would put a wrench in our relationship that you would let me go to hell? I mean, literally traveling to churches and doing these workshops often we find Christians who don’t share their gospel. Right. Who don’t talk to other people about their faith. And then you wonder, has there really been a transformation? Did you really understand the before and after? And if you have, it was funny. Once I had to leave BYU, God supernaturally got me another job in another state at another University that I hadn’t even applied for. So I go to a secular University where people are pretty hostile. Now I’m a new Christian on fire for the Lord. I kind of learned over the years to just claim I was fine with being called the crazy Christian. They used to call me Utah. Like, how stupid are you to have joined Mormonism, right? You drank that koolaid, now you’ve drunk this Christian koolaid and I would just laugh at myself and own the idea that I’m a Christian. I’m not changing my mind. If you ever want to talk to me, I’m happy to talk to you. There’s no reason why we should be afraid of our faith, right? Definitely. Just to be openly honest, that’s frustrating for me. Even as I mentioned before, we started the podcast that I coordinate the Soviet Ministry at my Church. And it’s frustrating for me because I see Christians that have been saved for years and stuff like that and they wouldn’t come out and they don’t go and evangelize. At least I personally believe that a lot of Christians don’t evangelize. And I think statistics say that it’s probably less than 10% of Christians who actually share their faith on a regular basis. It’s frustrating for me because I’m like, don’t you see what the world is going on out there? I don’t want to go on a tangent, but if you compare them out of Christians who are actively and passionately involved in politics and they will go to cities after cities and March for their cause, but they wouldn’t do that for Christ. I have to constantly take this to the cross, constantly take it to the cross. Because every time I see it, I’m like sometimes even some self righteousness kind of ball up in me of like, you know what? You need to take that to the cross. Because God knows for me not to get bitter of seeing Christians all excited about politics and things that don’t matter and things that truly can’t change anybody compared to crime.

Let me ask you this. Of course you’re Dr. Lynn Wilder. You have a doctorate degree. You have accomplished many worldly accomplishments. Tenured professor at BYU. Before you got saved, you had influential position in the LDS Church. Any regrets? Soon after I got saved, I remember going to Micah, our son, who got saved first, and bawling and apologizing to him and saying, I’m so sorry I raised you all these years in something that wasn’t true. I felt this great guilt for it. And Micah, Christian longer than me, turned to me and said, mom, don’t you realize God created this whole story? If you and dad hadn’t gone into Mormonism, if you hadn’t been so active, if you hadn’t been a professor at BYU, if I hadn’t gotten saved on my Mormon mission and kicked off, who would ever listen to the story or listen to what we have to say? As it turned out, I was 53, almost 54 years old, before I gave my life to Jesus. And I would just weep saying, oh, Lord, thank you for not letting me die before I knew you and that I might have some life left to tell people how wonderful your Grace is. Your saving Grace is. Our ministries have seen probably hundreds of Mormons come to faith. Why? Because they want to talk to somebody who understands Mormonism has been there was righteous in Mormonism, really believed it. Then God changed their heart. And they want to believe that this is true, that this God can change your heart, that there is hope for a new life. Because there’s a lot of shunning that goes on still in Mormonism. Not always. But if you’ve ever seen Leo reminisce series on Scientology, it really triggered me to watch the people leaving Scientology. It’s a lot with Mormonism. Some people get really kicked out by their families and it’s very hurtful. And so my doctorate is in emotional and behavioral disorders. So every day now I put it to work and people who are in crisis trying to decide if they want this God because of all the consequences that are going to come when they make a choice for Jesus. But here’s the thing, when you have to give up a lot like that, when you are in, you are all in. And so former Mormons make great Christians. They’re just ready to serve and ready to evangelize, typically.

Alright, Dr. Lynn, just before we go into this break, could you tell us about your Ministry and your books that you’ve written and stuff like that? Let the folks know what you have done for Christ. I woke up one day about 2011 and I was in prayer and I felt like the Lord said, I want you to write. And just like Sarah, when the angel came and said she was going to have a baby, she left. I laughed. Oh Lord, Shirley, there’s nothing for me to say. And that very day I started writing and God began to download a book that drew people in performance based religion to The God of Grace came out in 2013. God did a number of supernatural things. Like there was a very big man in the Mormon Church over all of Europe that began to question his Mormon faith. That came out on the front page of the New York Times the month before my book came out. My book sold out in Amazon on two days, the first printing. No one had any idea there were that many Mormons out there questioning their faith and looking for options. And it appears that God has been rocking through the Mormon world, pulling a remnant out. You know how in Islam we hear these amazing stories about how people are seeing Jesus and their dreams and all of a sudden they just are believers? I see the Lord doing some of those kind of things within the Mormon faith as well. Many people are leaving. Like they are religions everywhere. Many people are leaving Mormonism. They mostly go to agnosticism and atheism. But there certainly are Mormons that have had a heart for God and want to figure this thing out are willing to get into the Bible. And I would say I’ve had a good four new people just this last week. And they sometimes lose their spouses because in Mormonism, you have to be married to a worthy Mormon spouse in order to get to the highest heaven. So all of a sudden, if one spouse isn’t worthy, you need to go find another spouse. And so God is just good. He can change lives. And I do believe he’s rocking through the Mormon world. In some ways, Mormon saying we’re Christians, too, have been great. They joined Bible studies now, try to join Christian home school group, try to join Christian health care sharing ministries. And then they bump against the true gospel, which is great.

You’re listening to the Removing Barriers Podcast. We are sitting down with Dr. Lynn and we are finding out how well her barriers removed. We’ll be right back.

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Two Corinthians chapter five, verse 17, says, Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he’s a new creature. All things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. So tell me, Lynn, after Salvation, what changes were evident in your life? Well, I had to walk away from a career that I was at the top of salary and friends and all of that, which, of course, once you come to Christ, those kind of worldly things just don’t have a hold anymore. They don’t have the kind of value that they did. I did end up getting another professor job, and it wasn’t nearly as demanding as the one I’d had at BYU. But that was wonderful because God thrust us into Ministry. Once this book, Unveiling Grace, came out in 2013 and we did a six week series on Mormonism with John Ankerberg about the time of the election, I think was 2012. Then all of a sudden, we were thrust into the public eye. And Michael had already been in Ministry by then, five or six years. And so they were known. And then the parents kind of became known, too. It’s really interesting. Remember I said once I came to Christ, I rested in Jesus and he brought the works, right? I didn’t have to tick off any boxes and say, let’s see, should I be an evangelist or should I go into Ministry? No, God just created this grassroots thing that just grew so churches would invite my husband and myself to come give our testimonies. And pretty soon they put that up on YouTube, right? And then Mormons are questioning their faith and they’re finding us on YouTube. And pretty soon there are 5100 videos, maybe more than that. And we hadn’t done one of them. Right. God’s hand had just done all of those. And then God used those for Mormons to connect with us and to find us. And so he’s an amazing God. He created this Ministry. My husband and I now have been in Ministry about eleven years, and our kids have about 16 years now. For the purpose of what? So that Mormons can come to know the Lord. But not just Mormons, but anyone that believes that they can be saved by their own works or that their own works matter. As far as earning your way to live with God in the next life, thank you for all you do. You’re definitely doing a lot out there for Christ.

Do you believe that the way your barriers remove your amazing testimony, the barriers that were preventing you? Do you believe the way those barriers were removed would be effective to reach someone in the culture today, even someone who is another Lane while they’re growing up? I laughed when I saw this question a couple of days ago. I met a woman’s Bible study, and a woman said that one of her kids had kind of drifted from the Lord. And I made the comment that maybe we should pray anything it takes, Lord. And one of the other women said, no, we don’t pray that prayer. Right. I honestly think for most of us, in order to pay attention to the Lord, it takes a shaking up in your life. Something has to happen in order to make you stop and make these serious decisions. And the secular world sees these as bad things. Maybe a spouse dying or who knows? But whenever there’s something that switches circumstances, all of a sudden I think we need to pay attention because God likely is in it and he’s likely doing something. The way I came to Christ was a huge shock in our family when Michael came to Christ and the Mormon Church tried to kick him out. And then once I’ve got a Christian, then the other ones are Mormon, and then the Mormons are mad at the Christian. And all of a sudden my perfect family was ripped apart. And for some time, for several years until all of this settled out with God and he brought others to Christ and stuff, and I had nowhere to go but Jesus. Do I recommend those crisis experiences if they bring you to Jesus? I do. Wow. Amen. You say that it’s hard to think that it worked for good when you’re in the middle of it? Oh, yeah, for sure. I was taught so many lies in my old faith, and it took me nearly five years of reading the Bible to figure out what the truth was. So Micah’s Ministry has identified 40 things that Mormonism teaches that aren’t true. Right. And then just gives all the Bible verses that tell the truth about that topic. That’s a lot of things to have to sort through. So you’re losing your old identity and you’re completely gaining a new identity in Christ. But for us, it was a long process because where we’d been was so different from where we were going.

All right, Dr. Lynn, let’s go into a little bit of a fun section and find out some of your favorites. What would you say is your favorite scripture verse? My favorite scripture is Ephesians 320. We have several books now, and whenever I sign a book, I always put Ephesians 320. Now to him who is able to do abundantly more than all the or imagine according to the power, his power that is at work within us, to him be the glory. Certainly he’s an amazing miracle working God if he can change my life. Yeah, definitely. And mine as well.

What is your favorite Bible history? Some folks call it the Bible story. We kind of shy away from that term because the word story has changed meaning over the years. So what is your favorite Bible history? I think my favorite one is Naomi and Ruth, partly because every one of my sons ended up marrying into strong Mormon family. So they all came to Christ either right before they got married or right after they got married. All of my in law families are very strong LDS, and those families were not happy than with marrying into our family. And so I love my daughter-in-laws like Naomi loved Ruth. I have a very special relationship with them because we have the gospel in common and because I understand the pain that they’ve gone through and being separated right from their families or shunned at some point. Not that it has lasted all these years, but one of my daughter in law’s parents didn’t talk to her for nearly a year when they found out that she was leaving the Church. My son in law was not allowed. His parents were divorced and remarried. He wasn’t allowed in either of those Mormon homes for years. So that’s a tremendous heartache, and they need a new family. And of course, God puts together those new families. So Naomi and Ruth would be mine. Are all your children save at this point? All of mine? Yes. I would say all of mine are out of Mormonism. I’m not sure about all of them with Salvation, but three of the four are in Christian Ministry. Amen.

What would you say is the most convicting scripture passage to you? You’ll love this. Back to John, right? I told you all it took was John. John five. So I’m an intellectual, right. I like murder mysteries and I like the details of chasing down research and stuff. Okay. I’m a researcher. So I’m reading the Bible, reading the Bible, reading the Bible. And I hit this verse. You study the scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life as if God was talking right to me with a finger. But these are the very scriptures that testify about me. Yet you, Lynn Wilder, refused to come to me to have life. And I went, well, it’s not something I can intellectualize, right. And it’s personal and it has to be a personal decision. And then the next one you’re going to ask me is the comforting scripture. Well, the comforting scripture came next because I realized I could actually get saved when I read very truly, I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged, but can cross over from death to life. And I said, Lord, I’m ready. I want to cross over. Amen.

Do you have a favorite hymn of the Faith? Amazing Grace. I did not know it in Mormonism. We didn’t sing it in Mormonism, although the Mormon chapter Knuckle choir will sing it for the world as if they believed it. But I learned the words and with my first grandchild, I sat and wept and rocked him and sang Amazing Grace to little Jacob.

What about your favorite giant of the fate that would be Priscilla? Priscilla and Aguella? Seemed like a strong marriage invited Christians into their home, right? Did everything that was Lord centered. My husband and I have been married 47 years. Oh, wow. Congratulations. And since coming to faith in Christ, we’ve opened our home many times to broken and hurting hearts. And sometimes it’s just by Zoom. And so I see that too, as the work that Priscilla and Aguilea did in the early Church. Boldly not being afraid of the gospel.

Alright, Dr. Lynn, let’s wrap it up. And by sharing the gospel, how can barriers be removed in the life of others? Because you alluded to it earlier. Barriers are so personal, right? And they are different for every people. When I was first in Ministry, I would just fire hose people with the gospel and fire hose them with scripture. And one day I was in Salt Lake and I’d been on Christian radio and I came out of the booth and there was an ex Mormon atheist waiting to contend with me about how stupid was I to have gone to traditional Christianity. And I immediately jumped into that argument, you know, the apologetic argument back and forth. And I felt the Holy Spirit say to me, Just be quiet, just shut up and listen. Right. And so took this man in the cafeteria of this large Church. And he talked and he talked and he talked. And about 2 hours in, he began to weep because his wife had left him. When he left Mormonism and I felt the Holy Spirit say to me, see there’s a point of vulnerability. There’s a point where he might be willing to hear the gospel right because it’s something that matters to him. It’s a question he has. It’s something that’s unresolved and God taught me right then and there. It’s got to be personal. You have to listen and you have to be open to knowing what those points of contact vulnerability are, where they would be open to hear about the Lord and, you know, sometimes it’s just planting season. Sometimes it’s watering season. Sometimes you actually get to see the Salvation at the end but it’s all God’s work. I learned early that it wasn’t me and he could raise up a vessel tomorrow much more competent than I in being his vessel and so I see it only as his thing to do and that he sometimes uses me and does it through me. Yeah, definitely.

Well, Dr. Lynn, it was a pleasure thank you for joining us on the removing various podcasts. Thank you too. So much. I’m glad to know about your podcast. I will recommend it to others. Thank you. The removing barriers podcast. Thank you. That’s definitely a blessing. God bless, God bless.

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 clear view of the cross.