When I was eighteen a long time of age, late in the year 1970, I was deceptively released by a persuasive high school German teacher to the devilishly insipid specter of a long-dead 19th Century man, Joseph Smith, Jr., that, nowadays, continues to loom more than the minds of tens of millions of God’s youngsters as a cult of character in the guise of what they believe to be a modern day day prophet proclaimed to be a man in the likeness of Moses. That is what I was informed, that Joseph Smith was a prophet “like unto Moses,” having acknowledged practically nothing at all about him or the firm that he designed in April of 1830, the Mormon Church, or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-working day Saints. A query was requested of me shortly soon after I was frequented by two full-time Mormon missionaries from Utah in Tyler, Texas. “Would not it be wonderful to have a residing prophet to lead and information humanity in this most puzzling planet?” The senior of the two missionaries, named Burgess, experienced questioned me this, and I had replied that, “indeed, it would be wonderful without a doubt if God experienced called a prophet to guidebook his folks right here on the earth.” So that reaction to their issue began my processive indoctrination into the Mormon Church, as an impressionable young guy absolutely ignorant of the scriptures uncovered in the Holy Bible about prophets, which the Mormons claimed to acknowledge and believe as the phrase of God.
1 factor how old was joseph when he died led to yet another throughout the early fall of 1970, as the two aforementioned Mormon missionaries achieved with me when a week, for around six weeks, and informed me really a couple of factors about Joseph Smith and his “E-book of Mormon,” that I, for some silly cause, fully recognized at that time with out questioning their validity in accordance with the Holy Bible. However I experienced read through the Bible for the duration of my youth, and had memorized fairly a number of verses in it, I hadn’t genuinely comprehended what I would study that is, the correct gospel, or very good news, of Jesus as exposed by the Savior and his Apostles in the New Testomony, and prophesied by holy prophets in the Old Testomony. I was completely ignorant about the Old Testomony record, which produced it simple for these unscrupulously persuasive missionaries to lead me around by the nose to think in their nonsense and to do their bidding. In simple fact, the only reading that I was required to do in buy for me to “receive” a testimony of Joseph Smith as a prophet, and of the Ebook of Mormon as the word of God, was chosen chapters and verses from the Book of Mormon. There was no necessary studying from the Bible. During the durations of time in which the two missionaries satisfied with me, they used a flannel board and plastic figures as a implies of embellishing in my brain their 6 canned presentations that they referred to as conversations. At the beginning of each and every of these shows, 1 of the missionaries usually requested me whether I experienced prayed about what they experienced told me about Joseph Smith and E-book of Mormon, and obtained a burning in my bosom as to the truthfulness of individuals items. Not having recognized at that time the authentic historical truth about Joseph Smith and his Guide of Mormon, that Smith was a charismatic charlatan and the e-book a nineteenth Century conspiratorial item of Smith’s, and his third cousin, Oliver Cowdery’s vivid imaginations, I was totally taken-in and duped by people missionaries, and was baptized into the Mormon Church in Oct of 1970. That’s why, allow me to present in this recounting what I would have stated, and how I would have responded, to individuals Mormon missionaries and the significant other Mormon gentlemen and women who had entered my existence, had I identified what I realized later, and now know, about the Holy Bible and about the Lord Jesus Christ.
As to 1st query that I was requested, about the need to have for a living prophet in the early-19th Century, I would have simply mentioned that everything that was, and is, essential for a entire and complete expertise of Jesus Christ and his superb gospel, is in the confines of the Holy Bible and that if any male claimed to be a prophet, or a teacher, in the existing age, he wouldn’t say something but what has already been said in the Previous and New Testaments of the Bible by holy men of God as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. Every scripture in the Bible was given by holy guys of God for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness, that a man or woman seeking to follow Jesus could be thoroughly furnished in every way. There was a distinctive reason why these Mormon missionaries hadn’t inspired me to read the Bible, but only the Book of Mormon. Experienced I read, and comprehended, the Outdated Testomony, I would have recognized that the God of the Aged Testament, the ante-mortal Jesus, had established some quite stringent specifications for a being 1 of his true holy prophets, and that Joseph Smith hadn’t fulfilled “any” of those exacting conditions. You see, there is one more further-biblical guide that the Mormons settle for as the phrase of God, which is stuffed with the evidences that conclusively prove that Joseph Smith was a fake prophet. That ebook is named the “Doctrine and Covenants,” and is barely mentioned by Mormon missionaries in the course of people 6 canned presentations, named discussions, which prelude an acceptance or rejection of Mormon doctrine by having difficulties Christians. In Jeremiah 14:14 (KJV), the prophet writes, “Then the Lord explained unto me, the prophets prophesy lies in my identify: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them: they prophesy unto you a bogus eyesight and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their heart.” This was prepared above 500 many years following Moses had presently written in Deut. eighteen:18, “I will raise them up a Prophet from amongst their brethren, like unto thee, and will place my phrases in his mouth and he shall converse unto them all that I shall command him.” Moreover, the Lord carries on speaking in Deut. eighteen:20-22 (NIV), “If any prophet presumptuously speaks a word in my title that I did not command him to converse or speaks in the identify of other gods, that prophet must die. Even so, you may say in your coronary heart: How will we know that Jehovah has not spoken the word? When the prophet speaks in the title of Jehovah and the phrase is not fulfilled or does not come real, then Jehovah did not communicate that term. The prophet spoke it presumptuously. You ought to not fear him.” What does this suggest? I feel the which means of the words and phrases is quite darn obvious. If a guy promises to be a prophet, like unto Moses, and makes a prediction, or prophecy, about what is to occur to pass, and if what he suggests, in each and every detail, does not appear to move, the man is a bogus prophet, and, if he had been residing anciently, need to be place to demise. The Old Testament is crammed with illustrations of real prophecy provided by correct holy prophets of God. One particular of these examples is the prophecy provided by Isaiah, in Isaiah 37:22-35(NIV), “As a result hence suggests the Lord relating to the king of Assyria: “He shall not occur into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor appear ahead of it with shield, nor build a siege mound against it. By the way that he came, by the very same shall he return and he shall not occur into this town,” suggests the Lord. “For I will defend this town, to conserve it For My very own sake and for My servant David’s sake.” Isaiah experienced prophesied that the Assyrian Army, below the King of Assyria, would not shoot “one” arrow into the metropolis. Not 1 arrow, he said! Well, had one particular measly arrow been discharged from the bow of one nervous Assyrian soldier into the town, Isaiah would have sent a bogus prophecy in God’s name. But the file reveals that not a single arrow was shot into the city, which manufactured the prophecy true and faithful to God. In truth, each and every prophecy delivered by God’s correct anointed prophets was correct and trustworthy to the Lord God, and turned out just like the prophet experienced they would.
At this juncture, the prophecies of Joseph Smith, Jr. may possibly be examined and recognized for what they had been, predictions created by an uninspired male contacting himself a prophet. Keep in mind, if a guy, presuming to be a prophet, predicts everything to arrive to move in God’s name, each and every detail of the prediction need to arrive to pass. For instance, If I claimed to be an anointed prophet of God and stated, in the title of God, that on Friday May twelve, 2017, at 4:00 in the afternoon in Washington, DC, that it would start raining, and that it would rain steadily until finally 9:00 and immediately end, soon after which an earthquake would be felt during the entire world. Effectively, let’s say that on that Friday it commenced raining at 3:00 in the afternoon and rained steadily until 6:00 and right away stopped, and no earthquake adopted. Was my prophecy fulfilled in each and every detail? No, it wasn’t! It began raining on that Friday, but the time depth was not fulfilled, nor was the earthquake fulfilled. Therefore, I shipped a fake prophecy in the name of God, for which I could have been place to death if I had been living in the course of the time of Isaiah. That was the penalty paid out by bogus prophets. Now let’s seem at a single of the a number of prophecies shipped by Joseph Smith. Area 87 of the infamous ebook, the Doctrine and Covenants, regarded by Mormons to be their supply of doctrine and scripture, is supposedly a prophecy of the American Civil War shipped by Joseph Smith on December twenty five, 1832. Let us examine just what Smith explained would come about in Doctrine and Covenants 87:
“Verily, thus saith the Lord regarding the wars that will shortly come to pass, starting at the rebellion of South Carolina, which will ultimately terminate in the loss of life and distress of many souls And the time will appear that war will be poured out upon all nations, beginning at this location (During the American Civil War, war was not poured out on all nations. From 1861 to 1865, the rest of the planet was pretty considerably at peace). For behold, the Southern States shall be divided in opposition to the Northern States, and the Southern States will get in touch with on other nations, even the country of Great Britain, as it is named, and they shall also call on other nations, in purchase to defend on their own from other nations (The Confederacy did not get in touch with on any other country(s) than Great Britain for support) and then war shall be poured out upon all nations (Again, war was not poured out to any on “all” nations during the interval of time, 1861-sixty five). And it shall occur to pass, following many days, slaves shall rise up against their masters, who shall be marshaled and disciplined for war (The slaves that rose up from their masters ended up in fact quite handful of, and these slaves ended up not disciplined for war. In most cases they ended up killed). And it shall arrive to pass also that the remnants who are left of the land will marshal them selves, and shall become exceedingly angry, and shall vex the Gentiles with a sore vexation (This did not happen at all). And hence, with the sword and by bloodshed the inhabitants of the earth shall mourn and with famine, and plague, and earthquake, and the thunder of heaven, and the fierce and vivid lightning also, shall the inhabitants of the earth be manufactured to truly feel the wrath, and indignation, and chastening hand of an Almighty God, right up until the use decreed hath made a complete stop of all nations (There were no famines, earthquakes, plagues, or fierce thunder and lightning from heaven noted any place in the planet from 1861-sixty five) That the cry of the saints, and of the blood of the saints, shall cease to come up into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, from the earth, to be avenged of their enemies. Wherefore, stand ye in holy places, and be not moved, right up until the working day of the Lord come for behold, it cometh rapidly, saith the Lord. Amen.”