Why Mormon Prophets?

I got to meet with a couple of very nice Mormon missionaries the other night and they kept bringing up how they have a living prophet today.

So I asked a very logical question: Has Gordon Hinckley given any prophecies that I need to hear about? (Hinckley is their current prophet – their prophets are voted in)

They responded "Oh, yes!" and gave me a pamphlet on how important marriage is written by Hinckley. That's not really a prophecy, that's just good common sense.

What else you got? "Well, Hinckley prophesied that the Nauvoo Temple would be rebuilt and it was!" Okay, but city planners make this sort of prophecy all the time – they've got the money, they've got the men, they've got the equipment, they've got plans and schedules, where's the prophecy in that?

Now, the original prophecy about Nauvoo, that would count as a prophecy. In Doctrines and Covenants 124 (that's like a book of Joseph Smith sermons) we read:

29 For a baptismal font there is not upon the earth, that they, my saints, may be baptized for those who are dead—
30 For this ordinance belongeth to my house, and cannot be acceptable to me, only in the days of your poverty, wherein ye are not able to build a house unto me.
31 But I command you, all ye my saints, to build a house unto me; and I grant unto you a sufficient time to build a house unto me; and during this time your baptisms shall be acceptable unto me.
32 But behold, at the end of this appointment your baptisms for your dead shall not be acceptable unto me; and if you do not these things at the end of the appointment ye shall be rejected as a church, with your dead, saith the Lord your God.
33 For verily I say unto you, that after you have had sufficient time to build a house to me, wherein the ordinance of baptizing for the dead belongeth, and for which the same was instituted from before the foundation of the world, your baptisms for your dead cannot be acceptable unto me;
34 For therein are the keys of the holy priesthood ordained, that you may receive honor and glory.
35 And after this time, your baptisms for the dead, by those who are scattered abroad, are not acceptable unto me, saith the Lord.
36 For it is ordained that in Zion, and in her stakes, and in Jerusalem, those places which I have appointed for refuge, shall be the places for your baptisms for your dead.
37 And again, verily I say unto you, how shall your washings be acceptable unto me, except ye perform them in a house which you have built to my name?
38 For, for this cause I commanded Moses that he should build a tabernacle, that they should bear it with them in the wilderness, and to build a house in the land of promise, that those ordinances might be revealed which had been hid from before the world was.
39 Therefore, verily I say unto you, that your anointings, and your washings, and your baptisms for the dead, and your solemn assemblies, and your memorials for your sacrifices by the sons of Levi, and for your oracles in your most holy places wherein you receive conversations, and your statutes and judgments, for the beginning of the revelations and foundation of Zion, and for the glory, honor, and endowment of all her municipals, are ordained by the ordinance of my holy house, which my people are always commanded to build unto my holy name.

So in other words, Joseph prophesied that "if we don't get this thing built, and God has given us plenty of time to do it, then God is going to reject all our religious things like baptisms for the dead".

Well, did they get it built? Nope.

We as Latter-day Saints have been laboring for over forty years, and the revelations given us in the first were to establish the kingdom by gathering the Saints, building Temples, and organizing the people as the family of heaven here on the earth. We reared up a Temple in Kirtland, but we had no basement in it, nor a font, nor preparations to give endowments for the living or the dead. It was left by the Saints before it was completed, they going to Missouri. Joseph located the site for the Temple Block in Jackson County, Missouri, and pointed out the south-east corner of the Temple in the year 1831,—also laid the corner stone for a Temple in Far West, Caldwell County, Mo. These Temples were not built. We built one in Nauvoo. I could pick out several before me now that were there when it was built, and know just how much was finished and what was done. It is true we left brethren there with instructions to finish it, and they got it nearly completed before it was burned, but the Saints did not enjoy it.
(Journal of Discourses, 26 vols. [London: Latter-day Saints' Book Depot, 1854-1886], 18: 305.)

The building of the Temple of the Lord in the city of Nauvoo, is occupying the first place in the exertions and prayers of many of the Saints at the present time, knowing, as they do, that if this building is not completed speedily, "we shall be rejected as a Church with our dead;" for the Lord our God hath spoken it.(Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 vols., introduction and notes by B. H. Roberts [Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1932-1951], 4: 472.)

Now that right there is what you call a prophecy, a false prophecy.

The fact is that these modern Mormon prophets, have not and will not give real prophecies because someone might actually test them.

But the Mormon missionaries got it wrong, yes they claim they have a living "prophet", but they're not the only church claim to have a living prophet: true Bible believing, Christ affirming Christians do too and His name is Jesus. Jesus is the true and living prophet.

In Deuteronomy 18:18 God promises to raise up a prophet like Moses. In John 6:14 and John 7:40 people start asking "Is this The Prophet" in relation to Jesus. Jesus is The Prophet!

Do we need other prophets like the Old Testament did? Nope.

In Hebrews 1:1 we read "God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son"

So God in the past spoke through the prophets, but today, in these last days, He's spoken to us through Jesus.

The writer of Hebrews goes on to write that Jesus lives forever, He can't die – so why would I want a human prophet that is going to die? Hinckley is getting old and pretty soon the LDS church is going to have to vote in a new prophet, but my Prophet, is my God lives forever and God in the Old Testament never accepted votes on who would be His prophet.