The False Prophet Joseph Smith
by Michelle Grim
In late June 2005 I paid a visit to my mother in Utah. There is usually an uneasiness that has existed between us since I left the Church that is smoothed over by quickly turning our attention to my daughters, my nieces, the weather or my mother’s dogs. We can talk about anything but the Church because of her reaction to the subject. Whenever I share with her the lessons that I have learned from the Lord she turns sullen and changes the subject yet again. Her reaction tells me that she cannot relate to anything I’ve shared because she does not have a relationship with Christ Jesus.
The word ‘know’ is mentioned in Peter’s second epistle sixteen times. Peter is pleading with us to know Jesus. The only way we can do this is to read the Bible, study His Word and pray to Him. Paul as well stresses the importance of this personal knowledge of God and His Son when he wrote his letter to the Colossians from prison. Both audiences were indulging in the ungodly practice of Gnosticism. The common denominator between them and the LDS Church…Gnosticism. Sure we’ve all heard about the fellow named Jesus who lived 2,000 years ago so we can say that we know Him because we’ve heard of Him. I know President Bush, I see him on television, I hear him on the radio, and I read articles that have been written about him. However I do not personally know President George Bush. On the flip side, I do know Jesus. First I’ve read about Him in the Bible, I’ve prayed to Him personally and I carry on a relationship with Him day to day. The Bible tells me that the Holy Spirit resides in me, 1st John chapter 5, and He speaks to me through various other avenues such as my husband, children, pastor and friends. He uses these avenues as a confirmation to me that lines up Biblically with what He has said.
As I was looking for information about the Nauvoo temple that we’re preparing to visit in a few weeks I first paid a visit to www.lds.org I feel that it is always good to know what they’re doing because this is a church that continually evolves. Much to my chagrin on their home page there is everything about the prophets of the Church from Joseph Smith to Gordon B. Hinckley but there wasn’t a single thing on the front page about Jesus. Wasn’t He supposed to be their namesake?
At any rate I clicked on the new section www.josephsmith.net and there I found page after page of the wonderful man he was. For instance some of the pages are entitled: A Christian Heritage; Prophet, Seer and Revelator; Teacher of God’s Truth; Leading with Love; and Martyr for God.
At the ‘A Christian Heritage’ page I was appalled to see a page with baby Joseph in the arms of his mother entitled; “Birth of Joseph Smith”. The painting shows the family gathered around her much like a nativity scene with Mary, the baby Jesus and the wise men. Make no mistake my friends this is a carefully orchestrated pictorial of replacing the baby Jesus with Joseph to continue the transfer of adoration to Smith while still calling themselves ‘Christians’.
As I continued to travel through the menagerie of lies I came to the page of ‘Prophet, Seer, and Revelator’. There have been times throughout my exodus of Mormonism that my sense of all that is right has been greatly offended by the teachings of the Church and this finding was no exception to the rule. I’m not sure if the audacity of their teachings is becoming more blatant over the years or if I’ve become more intimately aware of the teachings of Jesus to alert me to the lies. Nevertheless, the first thing I noticed was that Joseph revealed the Lord told him that he is to “preside over the whole church”. I am certain that God put Jesus as the head of the true Church; Phil. 2:9, Col. 1:18, and
Matt. 16:18 tell us how this is so.
The second problem I had with this section is when it said: “The grand rule of heaven," Joseph said, "was that nothing should ever be done on earth without [God] revealing the secret to his servants the prophets.”
Whatever happened to John 19:30? Jesus said; “It is finished!” Did the veil of the temple tear into two pieces or not? The significance of the veil tearing in half was monumental! This gave us direct access to God Himself, therefore negating the need for the prophets needing to hear from Him to talk to us! Galatians 2:21 says; “I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.” The entire reason this even happened is because Jesus hung on that cross for us! Did they forget about Jesus?! He made the ultimate sacrifice for us, thus fulfilling the Law…
Let’s move on to the section “Teacher of God’s Truth”. The very first paragraph is so outlandish and full of pride that I almost choked on my coffee as I read what Hyrum had to say about Joseph. I cannot understand how they can tell me they do not worship Joseph! It says: “Joseph Smith is the greatest of prophets, after Jesus Christ Himself. As Hyrum Smith declared, "There were prophets before, but Joseph has the spirit and power of all the prophets."
Where in the Bible does it say that ANY of the prophets ever held the spirit and power of any other prophet? Where in the Bible do we find anything that lists who was better than whom? What about the prophet Isaiah? What about Jeremiah, Daniel, Micah, Obadiah, Habakkuk, Jonah, not to mention Moses…
I don’t know of many well known Christians who would even attempt to try and rank the prophets, but Isaiah was sawn in half. Daniel was literally thrown into a lion’s den…Jonah was literally swallowed by a whale…Moses walked through a desert for 40 years and by God’s power through his hand parted the Red Sea…Comparatively speaking, Joseph Smith shot and killed two people before he was shot and killed himself. He was in prison on various charges including arson. Today we would call this terrorism.
This page went on to quote Smith with this: “"I want your prayers and faith that I may have the instruction of Almighty God and the gift of the Holy Ghost” Joseph told the Saints, "so that I may set forth things that are true and which can be easily comprehended by you, and that the testimony may carry conviction to your hearts and minds of the truth of what I shall say."”
Let’s take a look at this statement carefully because the Mormon people have a tendency to just sit and listen with a glazed look over their eyes as well as their hearts. The phrase ‘I want your prayers and faith’…the following six questions are something you might want to ask the Mormon in your life to think about:
Why would you place your faith in a fallible man in this manner? Isn’t your faith to go to God and Him alone? Isn’t Jesus the author and perfector of our faith from God as it says in Hebrews 12:3?
What prophet ever asked anyone to have faith in him? Didn’t the prophets of God always point to God? Why would your faith in Joseph Smith give him the gift of the Holy Ghost? We receive the Holy Ghost when we receive Jesus into our hearts as Jesus tells us in John 14:23; and Paul tells us in Ro. 8:9-11 and Gal. 2:20.
This makes me think of how silly a statement this is and how foolish it is to place your eternal soul into the hands of man. If someone knocked on your door to offer you ten million dollars for your house and all you had to do was move out and sign on the dotted line would you do it? Wouldn’t you want to do some investigating of this guy first? Who is he? Where is his money? What is his motive? Where is he from? Why is he making such an offer? How did this come to be? I don’t know of a Mormon who would fall for such a gimmick yet here they are having done this with their souls.
Smith said to do this “so that I may set forth things that are true and which can be easily comprehended by you…” Isn’t God the one that sets forth truth? This sounds as if Smith has positioned himself into God’s place. Remember the 8th Article of Faith that says ‘We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly’. Meaning that you cannot trust the Bible to be true, but here we have Smith saying that what he presents to you is truth so you can comprehend it.
What this paragraph doesn’t say is that Smith was about to tell the people that everything they knew about God was wrong. It was here that he delivered his infamous King Follet Discussion. Hands down it is one of the most blasphemous discourses that have ever been said about God and His Son Jesus Christ. He claimed in this discourse that God was not Spirit but He was instead an exalted man, that Jesus Christ was created, that God did not create the earth but merely organized its elements and on and on it went. You can find the full discourse of this in History of the Church, vol. 6:302-3.
“Leading with Love” was no different from the other pages that I’ve seen so far but what caught my attention are the words of Smith telling the people not to get truth from books, i.e. the Bible. Keep in mind that if we believe what Smith has to say about truth we have to believe that God has lied to us in Isaiah 40:8; “The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.”
Here is what it said about Smith: “What set Joseph Smith apart from other dynamic leaders was the source of his teachings: the God of Heaven. "The best way to obtain truth and wisdom," he taught, "is not to ask it from books, but to go to God in prayer, and obtain divine teaching."”.
Smith didn’t lead with love. Smith led the people with an iron fist and the charismatic; soothe saying ways of the evil one. The Bible says in 1 John 2:9-11 that we can tell who our true brothers in Christ are by their behavior. John reiterates this again in 1 John 3:13-4, 23-4; and 1 John 4:5-8. If you do not love the brethren then God is not in you and you are not one of us. In 4:1-3 it says to test the spirits and that if you deny the incarnation of Jesus Christ then you are not of God, but you are the antichrist! So Smith has failed both tests. He called the body of Christ the whore of Babylon: 1 Nephi 14:10 says; “And he said unto me: Behold there are save two churches only; the one is the church of the Lamb of God, and the other is the church of the devil; wherefore, whoso belongeth not to the church of the Lamb of God belongeth to that great church, which is the mother of abominations; and she is the whore of all the earth.” Those are not loving words. If that wasn’t bad enough he also denies that Jesus is God which is even worse.
The last one I’ve listed here is “Martyr for God”. Let’s look at the word ‘martyr’ to get a clear understanding of its meaning. I’ve gone to www.dictionary.com and here is what it says about the word martyr: “one who voluntarily suffers death as a penalty for refusing to denounce their religion”. As I have stated many times before, Joseph Smith has voluntarily removed himself from the status of martyrdom seeing as how he and his brother Hyrum voluntarily pulled the trigger of a six shot pistol and killed two people before they were shot and killed themselves.
The only thing Smith qualified himself for was the shoes of one of the antichrists. If the website lauding the praise and adoration of Joseph Smith does not prove that they do indeed worship him instead of Jesus Christ then I suppose nothing ever will! They have categorically denied that Jesus is God, they have intricately denounced the authenticity of the Bible to be the word of God by saying that Joseph is to be believed; they have exalted themselves while bringing God down to their level; and insulted the One and Only Mighty God by calling His Church the whores of Babylon. Those are the foundational beliefs of the LDS Church. They do indeed worship Joseph Smith and the prophets of the Church.
I asked my mother a couple of weeks ago which prophet of all time that she liked the best. She replied by asking me which one I liked. I told her I couldn’t pick but have a tendency to turn to Isaiah time and again. I told her that his words are comforting to me when he prophesied about Jesus in chapter 53, or when he spoke of the ‘Highway of Holiness’ in chapter 35. She had never heard of Isaiah then told me that Hinckley and Joseph had to be her favorites. I found it interesting that Mormons refer to Joseph Smith by just his first name and everyone knows who you’re talking about. Yet I can’t recall the last time my own mother referred to Jesus without calling Him by His title instead of by His given name.
