Joseph Smith, Jr.'s Non-Prophet Organization

Without looking anything up, I can -- off the top of my head -- think of about 20 reasons right off the bat to stay away from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Their doctrines are loaded with heresy and what they believe contradicts the Bible at just about every turn. That being said, I would rank the failed prophecies of their founder and first "prophet," Joseph Smith, Jr. as number two on the list (number one is the fact the LDS/Mormons don't even believe the same God that the Bible presents -- but that's a subject for a future post).

The failed prophecies are so blatent that their apologists have to do an enormous amount of backpeddling to attempt to explain them away, which they really don't. So, let's look at a few of these prophecies and see if Joseph is what the LDS claim him to be: "Prophet, Seer and Revelator."


#1. THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST
In History of the Church, Vol. 2, Pg. 182 (1835) Joseph is chronicled as saying (under the inspiration of the "Holy Ghost" and through a vision), ".... . . it was the will of God that they should be ordained to the ministry and go forth to prune the vineyard for the last time, for the coming of the Lord, which was nigh — even fifty six years should wind up the scene...." Do the math. Fifty-six and 1,835 equals 1891. The problem is, Jesus didn't return in 1891. Joe missed it by at least 120 years -- and that's if Jesus were to come back today! Not only did Joseph ignore Christ's words about no one know the time of his return (Mk. 13:32), but he also falsely predicted the time of the return.

#2 THE OVERTHROW OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT
In History of the Church, Vol. 5, page 394 (1943) Joseph "prophesied": "I prophecy in the name of the Lord God of Israel, unless the United States redress the wrongs committed upon the Saints in the state of Missouri and punish the crimes committed by her officers that in a few years the government will be utterly overthrown and wasted, and there will not be so much as a potsherd left for their wickedness in permitting the murder of men, women and children, and the wholesale plunder and extermination of thousands of her citizens to go unpunished...." Oops! The United States Government did not redress any of the wrongs committed against the Mormons in Missouri, and now over 168 years later, the U.S. Government is still around (or at least I still have to file my 1040 each year).

Prophecy #3 CONGRESS TO BE BROKEN UP AS A GOVERNMENT
Before his untimely death, Joseph prophetically wrote, "While discussing the petition to Congress, I prophesied, by virtue of the holy Priesthood vested in me, and in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that, if Congress will not hear our petition and grant us protection, they shall be broken up as a government, and God shall damn them, and there shall be nothing left of them — not even a grease spot." (Millennial Star, Vol. 22, p. 455. See also History of the Church, vol. 6, p. 116, though when this prediction was incorporated into the official history, Mormon Church leaders decided to leave out the "grease spot" part.) Well, the petition was not heard nor was protection granted (Deseret News, Vol. 1, p. 59). Yet, Congress was never broken up and continues to function (after a fashion) to this day. It is interesting that the compilers of History of the Church, added an editorial note in an attempt to soften or explain this prophecy. They state that: "This prediction doubtless has reference to the party in power; to the ‘government’ considered as the administration;" (note, p. 116). According to the note in History of the Church, this means the Democratic Party, which was in control at the time. However, the prediction is that "Congress shall be broken up as a government" and Congress is made up of representatives from both parties. The Saints were making an appeal to the General Government, not to the Democratic Party, a point made by a summary statement in the left margin beside this prophecy as it is recorded in History of the Church.

Joseph later tried to cover his tracks (following a failed prophecy concerning the copyrighting of the Book of Mormon in Canada) by saying that "Some revelations are of God: some revelations are of men: and some revelations are of the devil." - AN ADDRESS TO ALL BELIEVERS IN CHRIST, David Whitmer, 1887 (Whitmer was directly quoting Joseph).

This is absolute baloney of the worst kind! The true test for a prophet of God is found in the Bible. Deuteronomy 18: 21,22 tells us, "And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not spoken? When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him." Joseph only needed to miss one to be a false prophet, but the truth is -- HE MISSED A BUNCH!

There are dozens of other failed "prophecies" that space does not allow me to go into, but if you are really interested, go to our new website nextstepoutreach.org and click on any of the resource links. You'll find some websites with really interesting information about Smith's failed prophecies on the time of the building of the last temple, finding treasure in Salem, Massachusetts, The European military intervention of the U.S. Civil War...and people who live on the moon (they are about six feet tall, dress like Quakers and live to be around 1000 years old).

Before I close this post, let me emphasize, as I have before, it is not my desire or the desire of Next Step Outreach to hurt Mormons or put them down. We love them. Otherwise we wouldn't be trying to get them to see the truth of the real Jesus, the real Bible and the real God. Without these, they are headed toward an eternity separated from God, in a place which is known in the Bible as Hell!

It's the Mormons we love. It's the heresy we hate.

In Jesus,
Dave