How to Identify a False Prophet

Today I read Deuteronomy 18 where the Lord explains why the Israelites have a prophet.  He reminds them that they had the chance to hear God's voice themselves and they turned it down.  They did not want to involve themselves directly with God after they got scared when He tried to communicate with them on the mountain.

The last verse is the most telling to me though.  God states that you can tell a real prophet from a false one by if what he predicts comes to pass or not.  This is extremely important in our day when we have all these doom sayers and people predicting the rapture and the end of the world.  None of their predictions are coming true.  By God's own mouth, this means that they are false prophets.  You'll notice that true prophets, like Gordon B. Hinckley and Thomas S. Monson, don't make radical predictions.  They merely tell us what the Lord would have us know, things like food storage and getting out of debt. 

The Savior Himself told us to be wary of false prophets.  When someone cries lo here and lo there, we are not to believe it.  We need to take everything we hear with a grain of salt.  If it is in teaching and harmony with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, then we need to pray about it and make certain for ourselves that it comes from God.  If it is not in harmony with the revealed teachings of Christ, well then we don't even need to concern ourselves with asking God about it.  Like this ridiculousness about the world ending on December 21, 2012, the scripture that comes immediately to my mind is Jesus telling His disciples that no man knoweth the day or the hour of His coming.  And if the world is ending, then guess what?  He needs to come again.  The two don't jive!  The scriptures are true, if they are translated correctly.  As such, they should be our ruler on what to believe, and what not to believe.  So many people just throw their knowledge of the scriptures right out the window when these nut jobs start making predictions.  It's really sad.  We have already been told enough to judge for ourselves.  Remember what we have been told and all will be well.  Until tomorrow.