One of the most amazing ironies of Mormonism hinges on its central tenet that it was founded by Joseph Smith, who claimed that he was called of God to re-establish Christ’s true Church on the earth.  The Mormons revere Joseph Smith as a true prophet of God and the holy man upon whom God himself laid this authority to administer God’s people and usher in this last dispensation of time. If his claims to have seen God and Christ and receiving his prophet-hood and authority from them were really true, two very important things would follow.

First, the Christian world would have to recognize that the “New Testament” era was over. To understand this one needs to understand the place of the “office” of the prophet.

Upon this Prophet, I will build my church

by Ed Decker

 

Ed Decker Saints AliveThe calling of the Old Testament prophet was “One to whom and through whom God spoke….their messages were very largely the proclamation of the Divine purposes of salvation and glory to be accomplished in the future.” (Vine’s Expository Dictionary, page 904). They were the pointers to Jesus!

In Luke 16:16, the Lord clearly stated, “The Law and the Prophets were until John: Since that time the Kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it.” The time for declaring the forthcoming of the Kingdom was over; the kingdom itself was now to be declared by the Son himself!

Hebrews 1: 1-2 makes it even clearer. “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds.”

This was said after Christ had risen and the church was in operation. No prophet was appointed to be the head of the church and spokesman for God. Christ had fulfilled that empty office in His own right when he said, “It is finished.” Yet as we read in Corinthians, notice that the gift of prophecy was active in the Church….but not anywhere in the headship of the church.

Therefore, if Joseph Smith was now the spokesman through whom God would now issue His orders, then the established order of New Testament government would have to be ended, and the church step into a New (and everlasting?) Covenant that was NOT foretold by Christ, by whom God was to speak to us in New Testament times.

If this were to be true, then we could step back from the “every man presseth into it” and listen to the instruction and counsel of the prophet and trust and obey the words from his mouth as though they came directly from God.

However, in order for us to take that step of obedience, we should be wise enough to take the Biblical tests of a prophet, as given in the Bible and put this new era prophet to the same simple tests by which every Old Testament prophet was judged. We need to do that with Joseph Smith.

One would think that any member of a “restoration” church that bases its very existence on its own personal latter-day prophet, would be able to give any willing listener a long litany of “true prophecies.” At least one would expect to find dusty volumes of such prophecies abounding in church libraries throughout the new kingdom. Yet, in Mormonism, they do not exist in mind or matter.

While some who claim both scholarship and membership have written books on the subject, they are not received by the church in any official capacity, especially since much of the work is contrived and pure blather.

If you doubt that the true Mormon avoids such discovery like the plague, just ask any Mormon you know to extemporaneously recite their five or six favorite Joseph Smith prophecies. You will rarely get past one or two of the most commonly used “faith promoting” stories that are hardly kingdom shaking stuff.

One such story that really did come true (if Joseph actually gave it) was a “word” given to Orrin Porter Rockwell, a Joseph Smith bodyguard and church assassin, to whom Smith promised a quiet death in bed if Porter never cut his hair. Old Porter killed many men through the years and we are told he died in bed, with ahead of long, uncut hair.

It is a continuing source of amazement that when the LDS missionaries share the joys of having a church led by a living prophet and are asked to produce a list the prophecies of their living prophet or any of their deceased prophets, including Joseph Smith, they cannot produce any such list. You would expect that any reasonable, thinking person would flee from such foolishness as though the very demons of Hell were after them. Yet, over twelve million people will testify that they “Know” by personal revelation, that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God.

It is our position that he meets the test of Scripture as one of the foretold false prophets who would come in the last days. Herein are a significant number of the prophecies of Joseph Smith. We had to dig them out of the LDS closet. It was not easy work .Judge them for yourself.

Saints Alive Ed Decker

Original Source:  Testing the prophecies of Joseph Smith

See followup articles on Joesph Smith, False Prophet Joseph Smith Part 1 of 3 & Part 3  False Prophecies of Joseph Smith

is not surprising when you understand that almost every prophecy Joseph Smith uttered failed to come to pass. Yet, over 12 million people place their eternal salvation on the line in their testimony that he was/is the one

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