Fulfillment of Prophecy

            I used to consider the Church’s humanitarian efforts, the righteousness of the people and the good feelings we sometimes feel about the Church to be the good fruits that Jesus said to look for.  However, these aren’t Biblical signs of a true prophet, or very logical ones for that matter.  There are other churches that exceed the LDS Church in these regards.  The Lord tells the Children of Israel how they are to know a true prophet from a false one in Deuteronomy chapter 18, where the Lord says:

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. (Deuteronomy 18:22)

So when examining the validity of a prophet, the first question we need to ask ourselves is: have this prophet’s predictions come true?  Some prophecies won’t be fulfilled for many years, such as the prophecies specifying the exact birth place of the Messiah and details of his life, which weren’t to be fulfilled until hundreds of years after it was made.  However, other prophecies have a specific time frame.  For example, the Lord told Moses that Pharaoh would refuse to let the Children of Israel go after the first nine plagues, and that’s what happened every time.  Then, before the tenth plague, the Lord told Moses that Pharaoh would not only let them go, but would “thrust [them] out hence altogether” (Exodus 11:1), and that’s exactly what Pharaoh did (Exodus 12:31-32).

Applying the same standard to Joseph Smith, we find some disappointing results.  For example, on one occasion, when the Church was facing some rough financial times, Joseph Smith predicted that the people of Salem would give him money.  The heading to D&C 111 states:

At this time the leaders of the Church were heavily in debt due to their labors in the ministry.  Hearing that a large amount of money would be available to them in Salem, the Prophet, Sidney Rigdon, Hyrum Smith, and Oliver Cowdery traveled there from Kirtland, Ohio, to investigate this claim, along with preaching the gospel. 

The Lord confirms this claim in the first few verses of Section 111, when he says:

I have much treasure in this city for you, for the benefit of Zion, and many people in this city, whom I will gather out in due time for the benefit of Zion, through your instrumentality. ... And it shall come to pass in due time that I will give this city into your hands, that you shall have power over it, insomuch that they shall not discover your secret parts; and its wealth pertaining to gold and silver shall be yours.  Concern not yourselves about your debts, for I will give you power to pay them. (D&C 111:2, 4-5)

It sounds a lot like they are going to receive money from the people of Salem so they can pay off their debts.  That’s what the Lord is promising them through Joseph Smith.  However, when we read the rest of the section heading, we find that that’s not quite what happened: “The brethren transacted several items of Church business and did some preaching.  When it became apparent that no money was to be forthcoming, they returned to Kirtland.”

            Another time-specific prophecy that Joseph Smith made had to do with the New Jerusalem and the construction of the temple at the Temple Lot.  In D&C 84, the Lord states, “… the city New Jerusalem shall be built by the gathering of the saints, beginning at this place, even the place of the temple, which temple shall be reared in this generation” (D&C 84:4).  Today, this lot is owned by a splinter group, and is covered with one big empty lawn.  It’s just as void of any temple as it was when Joseph received this revelation, and we’re constantly drifting further and further away from what we could call Joseph Smith’s “generation.”

Joseph also received some interesting revelations about the time frame of the Second Coming.  According to the official History of the Church, the Prophet called a meeting by divine commission and revealed how much longer it would be until the Second Coming:

“President Smith then stated that the meeting had been called, because God had commanded it; and it was made known to him by vision and by the Holy Spirit. He then gave a relation of some of the circumstances attending while journeying to Zion--our trials, sufferings; and said God had not designed all this for nothing, but He had it in remembrance yet; and it was the will of God that those who went to Zion, with a determination to lay down their lives, if necessary, should be ordained to the ministry, and go forth to prune the vineyard for the last time, or the coming of the Lord, which was nigh--even fifty-six years should wind up the scene” (HC 2:182, Feb 14, 1835).

Joseph Smith made this prophecy in 1835, and said that the “coming of the Lord” would be in “fifty-six years.”  This would put the Second Coming in 1891.  This date is confirmed eight years later, when Joseph “was once praying very earnestly to know the time of the coming of the Son of man,” and the Lord said to him, “Joseph, my son, if thou livest until thou art eighty-five years old, thou shalt see the face of the Son of Man” (D&C 130:14, 15).  Joseph was born on December 23, 1805, so he would have been 85 in the year 1891.  Jesus gave us a clear picture of what the Second Coming would look like in Matthew 24.  This did not happen in 1891.  If you ask me, that sounds a lot like “the thing which the LORD hath not spoken” (Deuteronomy 18:22).