‘Some revelations are from God: some revelations are of man; and some revelations are of the devil.’ (Joseph Smith Jr)

I recall hearing this quote from Joseph Smith many years ago. It applies a caution to each of us as we seek – or even receive, as we believe – revelation from God for our lives. What I wasn’t taught at the time, was the context for the quote.

The context is that Joseph had received a revelation that Hiram Page and Oliver Cowdery should travel to Canada where they would succeed in selling the copyright for the Book of Mormon for a considerable sum of money. When they returned from Canada empty handed, they asked Joseph how he could have received the revelation of success when that wasn’t what happened. His reply was the quote above.

I find this fascinating, because it suggests Joseph himself saying that this particular revelation hadn’t come from God. I presume he believed it had come from himself rather than from the devil.

Joseph also taught that a prophet was only a prophet when acting as such. And the Bible warns that a way to tell a true prophet from a false one was whether their prophecies came true: ‘… 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…’ (Deut. 18:22), ‘… And when this [a prophecy] cometh to pass — lo, it will come — then shall they know that a prophet hath been among them.’ (Ezekiel 33:33).

Critics of the LDS church state that because of prophecies from Joseph Smith like that of the copyright in Canada, it proves that everything he ever said should be discounted. I’m not of that view. As I’ve said many times over the last couple of years, we always must make our own decision on whether the words of someone claiming to be a prophet are actually from God or not. God warned us never to rely on the arm of the flesh, and I take that warning seriously.

The does make things complicated though, because it’s not always obvious.

Latter-day Saints have an article of faith that states, ‘We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly. We also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.’

Biblical scholars amply testify that the Bible – both Old and New Testaments – have been meddled with over the millennia/centuries. And the Book or Mormon itself tells us that it isn’t perfect: ‘… if there are faults they are the mistakes of men; wherefore, condemn not the things of God…’. (Book of Mormon, Title page)

Yes, the Book or Mormon tells us that it is not a perfect book – just don’t blame God for that.

For example, in the Book of Mormon, the prophet Nephi tells us that the descendants of those who followed his brothers Laman and Lemuel had darkened skin as a curse for their wickedness. What I believe is more likely is that there was intermarriage with darker-skinned natives, and that their children were therefore darker skinned than those from Jerusalem. Meanwhile, those who followed Nephi kept their marriages more closely amongst their own group, and their skin colour consequently stayed roughly the same. Nephi probably had no frame of reference for genetics, and so falsely attributed the darkening skin of his brothers’ descendants as a curse from God.

Whether it’s Nephi, Jacob, Alma, Helaman, or Ether; Mormon or Moroni as editors; or Joseph Smith as translator, mistakes may have crept in because all of them are fallible men.

If you’ve regularly read my blog here, you will know that I love the Book of Mormon. I’m not disparaging or dismissing it. I think Latter-day Saints in particular should pay much more attention to it. But it’s not perfect and we still need to exercise our own discernment.

Consider that we are taught that the sacred instruments, the Urim and Thummim, were given to Joseph when he initially received the gold plates upon which the Book of Mormon was engraved. They were specifically prepared for the translation of the ancient record. But instead of using that, Joseph primarily used his ‘seer stone’ in a hat to ‘translate’. The Church itself states this, and Joseph’s widow, Emma, confirmed it prior to her death. It was this very same seer stone through which Joseph received the ‘revelation’ about going to Canada to sell the copyright for the Book of Mormon – the revelation that turned out to be false.

Again, I love the Book of Mormon. We mustn’t ‘throw the baby out with the bathwater’. We mustn’t blame God for the mistakes of men.

But we do need discernment. We do need to be making our own decisions on what men who claim to speak for God tell us. We need to be using our own reason, our own conscience, and our own communication with the divine to be making decisions on what we believe to be truth. Just because someone claims to be a prophet, doesn’t mean they are a prophet; and even if they are, it doesn’t mean that what they’re telling us in that moment doesn’t come from themselves rather than from God.

Someone who says they are a special witness of the name of Christ has the sacred duty to teach us how we take upon ourselves His name – that is their duty. Our duty is to discern whether what they’re telling us is true or not, whether it’s what we should be doing or not.

When we get to the judgement bar, ‘But the prophet told me to,’ won’t be a valid excuse for doing wrong. God has given to all people the ‘light of Christ’ to helps us know right from wrong, good from evil. Ceasing to listen to that because someone told us to is disastrous – dare I say even evil by the one who tells us we should do so.

God really does love you and me. And no mortal man stands between you and Him.

© Copyright 2026 Jeffrey Collyer