Conclusions About Mormonism

by David Padfield

"Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world" (1 John 4:1).

The first Mormon prophet, Joseph Smith, was arrested and convicted in New York and was found guilty of being a con-artist, an impostor—he was a necromancer and a charlatan. This conviction was four years before he published the Book of Mormon! Court documents prove he was a convicted criminal.

My Lord knew no sin—Jesus led a sinless life (1 Pet. 2:21-22, "For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps: 'Who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth.'").

Joseph Smith said that the moon was inhabited by people six feet tall who dressed like Quakers and lived to be 1,000 years old (Source: Journal of Oliver B. Huntington, a devout Mormon contemporary of Joseph Smith; copy at Utah State Historical Society, Vol. 2, p. 166). Smith said the "gulf stream" resulted from the city of Enoch being taken out from the place where the Gulf of Mexico is. My Lord always spoke of which He knew—before Abraham was, He was—He was in the beginning with God (John 1:1).

Joseph Smith could persuade men—but my Lord could make the mute to speak, the deaf to hear, the blind to see, the lame to walk, and the dead to live. My Lord did not die amid blazing guns with a six-shooter in his hands.

Joseph Smith was murdered—not by a group of "anti-Mormons," but by men whose wives and daughters he had tried to ruin! When the jail was stormed, Joseph Smith used a handgun to kill two men and wound another. My Lord was never accused of improprieties with women. He was never a party to developments that failed. He never took His follower's money in some promotional scheme that was doomed from the start. He never led His followers from one location to another, for His kingdom was not of this world.

My Lord has given me a simple book, the Bible, which will guide me safely through this world, comfort me in the hour of death, and sustain my soul at the judgment—it is this book I must follow. As Jesus said, "He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him—the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day" (John 12:48).

"But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed" (Gal. 1:8).

Other Articles In This Series On Mormonism:

  1. Introduction to Mormonism
  2. The History Of Mormonism
  3. The Bible Or The Book Of Mormon?
  4. Other Sources Of Mormon Authority
  5. Mormon Doctrines
  6. Comparisons And Conclusions

For further study