With all the false teachers in the world, we were wondering what the Church’s position is on this subject matter. As you might expect, they’re all over the board.
To start off, the BoM says all false teachers will be trust down to hell
2 Nephi 28:15; “…all those who preach false doctrines,.., wo, wo, wo, be unto them, saith the Lord God Almighty, for they shall be thrust down to hell!”
Speaking along the same lines, Joseph Fielding Smith said: “No greater crime in the world than to teach false doctrines”
“How careful our instructors in our schools, institutes, seminaries, priesthood classes and auxiliaries should be to guard the revealed truth from heaven! How fearful we should be lest we teach that which is false and thereby lead souls astray, in paths that lead to death away from the exaltation in the kingdom of God. There is no greater crime in all the world than to teach false doctrines and lead the unsuspecting astray, away from the eternal truths of the gospel.” – Joseph Fielding Smith
Also see: CN, June 12, 1949, 21-22
And here comes the problem…according to Bruce McConkie, Brigham Young taught false doctrines, but he’s in the celestial kingdom now.
Bruce McConkie’s Letter to BYU Professor Eugene England, February 19, 1981;
“I do not know all of the providences of the Lord, but I do know that he permits false doctrine to be taught in and out of the Church and that such teaching is part of the sifting process of mortality…. I repeat: Brigham Young erred in some of his statements on the nature and kind of being that God is and as to the position of Adam in the plan of salvation, but Brigham Young also taught the truth…and has gone on to eternal reward. What he did is not a pattern for any of us. If we choose to believe and teach the false portions of his doctrines, we are making an election that will damn us.”
Why wasn’t Brigham thrust down to hell, and why isn’t he charged with committing the ‘greatest crime in the world’?
While we’re talking about false teachers…what about Joe Smith?
God explicitly said there’s no wiggle room for even one false prophecy. Besides all that, where in the Bible does it say He allows false doctrine as ‘part of a sifting process’? How does that work with what Jesus said in Matthew 18:6? (Don’t lead little ones astray…)
The Bible doesn’t say you can give out a bunch of false prophecies and if just one is right, then he’s trustworthy. The Bible says if the prophet who speaks in His name gives ONE false prophecy, he’s not to be trusted. Just one bad prophecy is all it takes!
“But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die. 21 And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not spoken? 22 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.”
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