From: Aaron Smith
The Anti-Christ
Brothers and Sisters:
This email comes to you asking a question. It really is a simple question born from a thought that came to me several weeks or months ago now that I can't answer on my own.
This email is a sincere attempt to find truth and learn. I do hold my current view/hypothesis and it is stated below, but if that view needs to change, then I want to know it. Think of this as a broad social experiment where you get to play a part.
This question relates to the concept or idea of current Protestant theology that states there will be one man who will embody the Anti-Christ and come to power for three and half years and then sacrifice on the alter of the new temple that will have been built at Jerusalem.
Personally, I've never read this interpretation from the I.V., the BoM or the D&C. In fact, more specifically, I've never heard one of our ministers (prior to recent days) preach this based on those books or even a personal experience he had or that he had even heard of in the church.
So, I was left to wonder.....IF this current Protestant theology is correct, why would God leave his church in darkness on this matter? If the Anti-Christ really was a future man and would do all that I stated above, then why wouldn't God want to warn his latter day church about this and prepare them for it?
He has prepared us for many things, including another desolation of abomination (D&C 85), a falling away from spiritual truth (Matt 24), brother fighting against brother/civil war in this land (D&C 45 & the civil war prophesy), many wars and rumors of wars and calamities such as earthquakes and tsunamis, etc (Matt 24), a desolating scourge (D&C 5:3 & 45:4) and the list can go on for quite some time.
What I can't find in the D&C or from Joseph Smith Jr. or JS 3, or FM or Israel A, or W Wallace, or Wally B - or Parley P Pratt, Orson Hyde, Joseph Luff, WW Blair, Arthur Oakman, Henry Schaefer, Vivian Sorenson (and yes, this list can go on and on as well) is ANY mention of this current interpretation based on their understanding of scripture OR their own personal experience about it.
I have not read all the books. I have not heard all the testimonies (even from current Latter Day Saints) and so I'm reaching out to you. Surely you know where my stance is currently. I don't believe at all this business that there will be one man who will embody the Anti-Christ and take over for 3.5 years and offer sacrifice at a newly built temple in Jerusalem. However, if I am wrong, I want to know it. I want to be able to read from their own lips or hear it with my own ears and discern the spirit in which it was given.
Help me find those testimonies, those sermons preached, those written records which point to the current interpretation of the Protestants relating to the Anti-Christ being true.
Please do not send me current Christian preacher's evidence/testimonies/
Surely among this list, there is someone who knows of a testimony or a sermon given which supports this view. If there is not, it lends itself to the fact that this interpretation isn't correct and we should be very careful in allowing it to be espoused among our members.
For the record, there are over 70 people on this email from 30 different branches and 6 different states/countries. This is my attempt to spread this net wide. I want to know if I'm wrong in the long-standing interpretation that the church has had regarding this issue - that the Anti-Christ was present with John in his day, manifested himself fully in the life of an apostate church for 1260 years and still clings to power until the day when she/he will be broken and cast into hell for a 1,000 years. It is not one man.
In Gospel bonds,
Aaron J. Smith
Section 90 Design, LLC
PO Box 375 Independence, MO 64051
(816.838.2622)
PO Box 375 Independence, MO 64051
(816.838.2622)
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