I will take for my text the following words of the Prophet Moses spoken
to the children of Israel while they were journeying in the wilderness
of Arabia.
"The prophet who shall presume to speak a word in my name which I
have not commanded him to speak * * * even that prophet shall die.
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." Deut. xviii:
20-22.
The passage which I have read may be taken as a key by which to
distinguish a true prophet from a false one. The first definition of
the word prophet, according to the standard dictionaries is, "one who
prophesies; one who foretells future events; a predicter; a foreteller;
a seer." In this light we shall proceed to test the claims of Joseph
Smith, whom the Latter-day Saints claim to be the great Prophet of
the Nineteenth Century. We claim for him that he was visited by holy
beings, who restored to him the fulness of the gospel of {93} Jesus
Christ, with authority to administer in all the ordinances of the
same; that he received from the angel Moroni certain gold plates that
had been hidden in the earth for fourteen hundred years, and that he
translated the engravings upon these plates into the English language
by the gift and power of God, the result of which was the Book of
Mormon. We further claim that he organized the Church of Christ once
more upon the earth, and that he received by direct revelation a code
of laws and commandments by which to govern the affairs of that Church,
according to the original pattern given by Jesus and His Apostles
eighteen hundred years ago. We further claim that it is of the utmost
importance for all people who desire eternal salvation, to know whether
these things are true or not. If Joseph Smith is what he professed to
be: A true Prophet of God, no one can reject his testimony without
being condemned; while on the other hand, if he was an impostor, or a
false prophet, we can reject him without fear of Divine punishment, and
the condemnation will rest upon the man who assumes to speak in the
name of the Lord presumptuously. In this lecture I shall confine myself
to his prophetic and inspired utterances by proving their fulfilment
and truthfulness mostly from a historic standpoint.