In 1837, the church was in a troublesome amount of debt. As expected, Joseph Smith tried to come up with a way to solve this financial crisis. The idea that he and other LDS leaders agreed on was to start their own bank. But in order to successfully start a banking institution, you need to convince people to invest their money into your business. Smith was able to accomplish this.
Another thing to factor in is that in 1831, Smith introduced the law of consecration, where LDS members would give all of their wealth and property to the Lord’s prophet for the building up of Zion. Then Smith ended up distributing a lot of it among the LDS members. However, I have to believe that he had some wealth left over from what was consecrated. We know that Smith invested a good chunk of money into his own bank, and it’s reasonable to assume that a lot of this money ultimately came from what was previously consecrated.
In any case, this bank was never officially recognized or chartered. In other words, when people were investing their money in exchange for this new bank’s currency and bank notes, they were absolutely useless and not worth a cent. Smith knew this, he knew that it was illegal, yet he still proceeded to print out currency dollars as if they were legit. Following are a few quotes to give us a better understanding of this scenario.
Wilford Woodruff was the 4th president of the LDS Church. But at this time, he was one of the early LDS leaders and here is what he said about Smith and this bank which was called, the Kirtland Safety Society:
“he (Joseph) had received that morning the word of the Lord upon the subject of the Kirtland Safety Society…but remarked that if we would give heed to the commandments the Lord had given this morning all would be well.”
- So Woodruff is laying this out, and saying that Smith received a revelation from God about the Kirtland Safety Society. We don’t know exactly what God told Smith, but God did allegedly give him directions and if they follow those directions, all would be well. Woodruff ends this quote by saying:
“May the Lord bless Brother Joseph with all the Saints and support the above-named institution and protect it so that every weapon formed against it may be broken and come to naught while the Kirtland Safety Society shall become the greatest of all institutions on earth.“
- Why did Woodruff have this image in his head of Joseph’s bank becoming the greatest institution on earth? Because that how Smith was selling it. To simply put it, Smith was combining dramatic sale tactics with religion, basically telling people that, “God gave me instructions and if you follow me, you can be part of the greatest institution on earth.”
But to give a little bit more context on this, just 4 months early, Joseph received a revelation which is recorded in D&C 111:5 where God is speaking and says, “Concern not yourselves about your debts, for I will give you power to pay them.” This really sets up the expectation that if Mormons are faithful, then God is going to provide a way for them to pay off all of their debt. But they need to listen to and follow God’s prophet in order to be faithful to God, right? To summarize this point, Joseph is essentially saying, “If you listen to me, God will financially take care of you.”
Here is a screenshot from the LDS Church website that speaks directly to this point (link to article below):
“Joseph, meanwhile, urged all the Saints to invest in the Safety Society, quoting Old Testament scriptures that called on the ancient Israelites to bring their gold and silver to the Lord.”
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/saints-v1/23-every-snare?lang=eng
Once again, combing sales tactics with religion. And I’m not gunna lie. There are some other people coming to my mind right about now…
One other thing that I think needs to be mentioned as well is another way that Smith convinced people to confidently invest in his bank. Here is what a man named, CG Webb explained:
“Smith resorted to a rather ingenious deception: ‘Lining the shelves of the bank vault . . . were many boxes, each marked $1,000. Actually these boxes were filled with ‘sand, lead, old iron, stone and combustibles,’ but each had a top layer of bright 50-cent silver coins.”
Here, Webb is stating that there were small boxes inside the bank vault, and these boxes were full of sand and junk, but the top was covered with coins. And this gave this unquestionable appearance that Joseph had a ton of money ready to distribute, when in reality, he actually had very little money.
This scenario ends when investors bring their bank notes to Joseph saying, “Here, we want to exchange these back for our money.” But what did Joseph do with their money after they invested it? He had already invested it in real estate, and could not come anywhere close to paying these people what he owed them…and that’s a crime in addition to printing illegal bank notes and fake currency. These investors reported Joseph to the authorities who tried to arrest him and instead of taking responsibility, Smith runs away from justice and hides out for a while.
The church article goes on to say that, “In the past, the Lord had revealed scripture through Joseph, making it easy for them to exercise faith that he was a prophet of God. But when Joseph’s statements about the Safety Society appeared to go unfulfilled, and their investments began to slip away, many Saints became uneasy and critical of Joseph.” (link to article is the same link above)
Why did the Saints become uneasy and critical of Joseph? Because this is bad fruit that wreaks of a false prophet. Needless to say, this bank eventually gets shut down in August, 1837 and Smith lost a lot of the money that his loyal followers had previously consecrated and he also lost all of the money of his investors. All of these people were understandably upset and many of them left the Mormon Church as a result.
This is what flowed into the introduction of mandatory tithing. About a year after the bank fails and creates this financial collapse, Smith knows that the people aren’t going to trust him and consecrate their land for redistribution like they did before. But he still needs funds in order to successfully move the Mormon Church in the direction he wants it to go. So in July, 1838 Smith officially introduces the law of tithing to the Latter Day Saints, where all members need to give 10% of their earnings to him if they want to be faithful to God. This Scripture is found in D&C chapter 119. And this is when the law of tithing became a requirement if you want to enter into the celestial kingdom.
When examining the life of Joseph Smith, there really seems to be a constant theme of him creatively using religion as an innovative tool to raise funds for his agenda. When looking at this track record, it is very difficult for me to say that these fund raising tactics truly were revelations from God.
Matthew 7:16 “And by their fruits, you shall know them.”
If you are interested in watching a more indepth dive into the fruits of Joseph Smith, check out my video on YouTube: Testing the Fruits of Joseph Smith w/God Loves Mormons, Bradley Campbell – https://youtu.be/ecBnhcM2g5o
Thanks for reading, God bless, and remember to never stop chasing after Jesus.
JLLDS Ministries 