Were true prophets of God, such as Abraham and Moses, anciently subject to deliberate deception by cunning men and women when they were acting under their mantle of authority and power? I think that the Holy Bible is pretty clear on this particular subject. Ancient Hebrew prophets of God were the oracles by which the God of Israel spoke to his chosen people. Moses, Joshua, Samuel, Ezekiel, Daniel, Elijah, and, of course, John the Baptist were chosen men who wielded the power of God because they had been truly ordained by God to their positions of authority and leadership. They could not be deceived by evil designing men seeking to take advantage of them, in order to lead them astray. True prophets have never been led astray because their very lives depended upon their veracity and integrity. False prophets, and fallen prophets, suffered awful punishments anciently, as declared in Deut. 18.
After Jesus died on the cross and was resurrected, the Holy Spirit descended upon the earth to lead Christians into the truth of all things. Prophets, such as Moses, were no longer required upon the earth because Jesus began to reveal his will directly to individual Christians through the Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul spoke prophetically in 1 Cor. 13:8-10, to say that, “Love never fails, but whether there are prophecies, they will fail, whether there are tongues, they shall cease. Whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, but when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.” Some Bible scholars believe and teach that the reference to “when that which is perfect is come” means the eternity of heaven. I, however, believe that Paul was referring to the Lord Jesus Christ and his death, burial, and resurrection. The Holy Spirit was not not allowed to descend upon the earth until Jesus ascended into heaven. Hence, Jesus directs our lives today through the Holy Spirit. Of course, the Savior can appear, and speak, to anyone on the earth at any time, as he did to Saul, who became Paul the Apostle. God is not limited in what he can do.
As such, there is no telling what punishments God has in store for them who, today, seek to deceive the children of God into believing heresy, and who manage through deception to steal away the souls of many gullible human beings struggling to find the savior Jesus Christ. Paul the Apostle exhorted the early Christians to avoid being deceived by teachers having itching ears, and prophesied that false teachers and false prophets would come forth during the latter times and deceive many. Do you suppose this is why Jesus said that “straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leads unto eternal life, and few there be who find it?” There are vivid examples throughout human history of the perverse fruits produced by those wolves in sheep’s clothing. One such example, during the 19th Century, dealt with much more than fraud and deceit. It involved murder.
As the facts will clearly reveal, the Mormon (LDS) Church claims that a living prophet of God, a successor of the Mormon Prophet, Joseph Smith, Jr., has presided, since 1830, as God’s chosen oracle over what is proclaimed to be the only true Christian church on the face of the earth. The current 21st Century Mormon prophet is Thomas S. Monson. The fact is, though, there are fifteen men in the Mormon Church who claim to continually hold the title, and position, of prophet, seer, and revelator. These men are ordained and they eventually die, but there are always fifteen of them. These are the twelve Mormon apostles, called the Council of the Twelve Apostles, and the presiding Mormon prophet and his two counselors, called the First Presidency of the Mormon Church. Thomas S. Monson succeeded Gordon B. Hinckley as the presiding prophet, seer, and revelator of the Mormon Church,when Hinckley died in January 2008. Before that time, Monson was one of Hinckley’s two counselors. Before Hinckley became the presiding Mormon prophet, in March 1995, he was one of the two counselors, at different times, to three of the presiding Mormon prophets, Spencer W. Kimball, Ezra T. Benson, and Howard W. Hunter. Before he became a counselor to a presiding prophet, Hinckley was an apostle. So, you can say that Gordon B. Hinckley was regarded by the members of the Mormon Church as a prophet, seer, and revelator of God from 1961 until he died in 2008, a period of forty-seven (47) years.
Now, as the bard would say, here is the sardonic rub, the awful truth about the Mormon prophet Gordon B. Hinckley, which also applies directly to all Mormon leaders regarded as prophets, seers, and revelators, past and present. Hinckley, while as a counselor for presiding Mormon Prophet Spencer W. Kimball, from 1981 to 1985, was in charge of church public relations (the Mormon propaganda ministry) and was the wheeler-dealer for the LDS Church in the acquisition of, supposedly, authentic historical materials that contradicted Mormon historical and doctrinal claims. In 1980, Hinckley became acquainted with a young fellow named Mark Hoffman, a, supposedly, devout Mormon returned-missionary (served a two-year full-time Mormon mission) who represented himself as a dealer in obscure Mormon antiquities. Hinckley was so smitten by Hoffman’s suave and persuasive demeanor that, for five years (1980-85), he met with him, at least once a month, in his church office,where he purchased, with church funds, a variety of false forged documents that Hoffman had cleverly manufactured for two purposes, to cause the Mormon Church damage and to get rich. Hoffman had succeeded in getting so close to Hinckley as to acquire his personal telephone number. All of this information about Hoffman’s close association with Hinckley was cogently detailed in the very popular 1988 well-researched book, “The Mormon Murders,” by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith.
Over those five years, 1981-85, Hinckley paid Hoffman close to $400,000, out of official church funds, for numerous false forged documents that Hinckley believed were authentic. Hinckley was, however, supposed to be a discerning prophet, seer, and revelator of God when he acted in his official capacity as a church representative purchasing the false forged documents. Yet, he was deceived in every way by the crafty forger, Hoffman. Moreover, after Hinckley purchased a particular false forged document from him, Hoffman would deliberately leak the contents of the deleterious document to the press, and then lie to Hinckley, telling him that his own archivists in the Mormon Church’s Historical Department had leaked the information. And, of course, Hinckley had fully believed Hoffman every time it happened. Every time Hoffman sold Hinckley a forged false document, Hinckley’s faith in the very evil and deceitful man increased.
Then came the moment, which made reason stare; when Mark Hoffman’s greed, and evil pragmatic deceit, combined with Hinckley’s profound arrogance and gullibility resulted in the murders of several innocent people in Salt Lake City. These murders resulted from Hoffman’s desperate deliberate attempt to delay a sale of documents that the Mormon Church was arranging from another reliable source. Hoffman desperately needed more time to forge and perfect the false documents that was to comprise his bogus William McClellin Collection, which he was arranging to sell to Hinckley. So, hoping to stall the competing sale, Hoffman used home-made pipe bombs to kill the Mormon Church liaison for the sale, Bishop Steve Christensen; and he had even attempted to kill Christensen’s former boss and mentor, Gary Sheets, of the CFS Financial Corporation, but, instead, ended-up murdering Sheet’s wife, Kathy Sheets. During his attempt to rig one of the pipe bombs, Hoffman was seriously injured when it exploded unexpectedly near him.
These tragic murders were quickly investigated by the FBI, as Salt Lake City field agents deftly connected the dots back to Hoffman and Hinckley; and when Hinckley was finally asked about his, and the Mormon Church’s, relationship with the forger, Hinckley emphatically told the FBI that Hoffman was an innocent and just man and that they would get nowhere by investigating him. Yet, when Hinckley found out, just a little while later, that Hoffman had deceived him, his story changed very rapidly to a relationship with Hoffman that was merely casual. The FBI agents in Salt Lake City, who were members of the Mormon Church, tried to secretly work with the LDS Church Security Service (which employed quite a few ex-FBI and CIA agents) to shield Hinckley from federal interrogation and from the media, even though they knew, for a fact, that Hinckley was lying about Hoffman.
Even though the Salt Lake Tribune carried the story about the murders, the powers-that-be were successful in almost suppressing Hinckley’s association with Hoffman, in his sale of forged and false documents to the Mormon Church, in the front-page article. Nonetheless, subsequent articles that appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune began to point a suspicious finger at Hinckley. When research journalists for the “Tribune” discovered, a few days later, that Hinckley had actually purchased the documents and, afterward, stuck them away in a secret vault, they called the Mormon Church office and asserted that the truth was being suppressed. So the Mormon Church decided to stonewall. A spokesman for the Mormons said, “The church doesn’t have the documents… they are not in the church archives or the First Presidency’s vault.” (“Salt Lake Tribune,” April 29, 1985) Finally, when it became clear that some Mormon investigative scholars had photocopies of the forged documents and were going to turn them over to the news media, the Mormon Church backed down, and the same spokesman admitted his earlier statement was incorrect: “The purported documents were indeed acquired by the church. For the present they are stored in the First Presidency’s archives…” (“Salt Lake Tribune,” May 7, 1985). As Sir Walter Scott so vividly quipped, “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we master to deceive.” The deception, lies, and deceit that encompassed the Mormon murders fit this sordid description of well-planned lies that have to be continually covered and protected by other greater pernicious lies.
Looking backward at deliberate prevarications is not in any way comfortable for the people who have been responsible for intentionally using such lies to create false illusory perceptions about real damaging facts, in order to cover-over the sad ultimate truth and its history. Most of the present-day members of the Mormon Church who were born in, and after, 1985, who are now nearly 30 years of age, don’t know very much at all about the “Mormon Murders,” and Mark Hoffman’s, and Gordon B. Hinckley’s roles in their occurrence in 1985. Gordon B. Hinckley, who was presumed by millions of rank-and-file Mormons to have been a prophet of God, was completely fooled by con-man, forger, and murderer Mark Hoffman into believing his lies. Hinckley did not have, or show, the slightest discernment about Mark Hoffman and his intent to deceive. This would indicate to any reasonable person that Hinckley, like all other Mormon prophets, seers, and revelators, was just another human being claiming to be something he definitely wasn’t.