Memo 16, September 1, 2001
To: All Pratt adults and selected others
From: Grandpa, etc. Richard Marden Pratt
Re: The Second Coming Preceded by Apostasy
Apostasy is a “turning away from” as a traitor turns away from his country and sells out to the enemy so an apostate sells out to Satan. And as the penalty for a traitor in times of war, is death so also the penalty for apostasy is death, Spiritual death, for they separate themselves from God.
The history of this world from Adam to the present has been one continuous turning away from God and embracing all that Satan stands for with the resultant misery, poverty, hate, violence and suffering attendant there to. Scattered thru the world during its history the Lord has tried to maintain little islands of righteousness but at times even these islands have been swept away by the floods of iniquity. The worst period of total apostasy when few or no islands were left was during that period of time called by the world, itself, “the dark ages” roughly 325 AD to 1300 AD or about 1000 years. But even from 1300 to 1820 AD the few islands that were established were done so by good men but men who had no authority to act in God’s name.
So it was that on an early spring day in 1820, a 14 year old boy, Joseph Smith, asked God which church was right, which church was his church, which church should he join?
Where upon the Lord, Jesus Christ, in person answered, “join none of them, for they were all wrong.....all their creeds were an abomination in his sight;.....they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.”
Many good and sincere men among these “self-styled” preachers of God did do much good. The Bible in part was preserved in lonely monasteries, and until modern times was the only source, vague as it was, of the moral principles that has made our modern civilization possible. Without those principles of decency taught by the Bible the world would soon destroy itself. And that is the fate now pending unless we can swing the pendulum back to “love thine enemies, do good to those who despitefully use you etc.”
“God never rules tyrannically except when men so corrupt themselves that they are unfit to live. Then under such conditions, it is the story of all his dealings with mankind that he sends judgement upon them and wipes them out and destroys them.” (Source unknown)
And so it is today, with millions murdered before they are even born, with the filthiness of homosexuality, and the destruction of the family, with violence of man toward man and nation against nation, there is only one hope, and that cry is going out: God is speaking through his Prophets and announcing that there are now on the earth men authorized of God to teach righteousness and perform the saving ordinances by which a person publicly declares his allegiance to God.
They are saying to men and women of all faiths, “bring the truth that you already have and we will add to it until you have the fulness of truth and the power to save yourself from a dying world, an apostate world that has cast God out and have sold their allegiance to Satan.
There are two great divisions in so called modern Christianity: Catholic versus Protestantism of which there are hundreds if not thousands of different sects all claiming to be God’s true church.
The highest ranking official in the Catholic Church put it this way to President David O. McKay on a visit in President McKay’s Salt Lake Office. Said he, “President McKay, you don’t know the strength of your position, for only one of two churches could be God’s true church, either the Catholic church is right by direct line of authority from Peter as we claim or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the only true church by direct revelation from God as you claim. None of the Protestant churches can even make a claim to being the true church of Christ. For as the word “Protestant” means they simply protested against some of the practices of the Catholic church.”
President McKay smiled and answered, “Yes we know the strength of our position and we are right and are the true representatives of God and we invite Catholics and Protestants alike to bring their goodness with them and let us add to it that all might enjoy salvation from a dying world and exaltation in the presence of God forevermore.”
From the earliest times the Saints have hoped that they were living in the day of the second coming of the Lord. Enoch, 4th great grandson of Adam and, Adam was still alive, had a face to face confrontation with the Lord and learned some astonishing things. “He saw angels descending out of heaven crying: Wo, Wo be unto the inhabitants of the earth. And he saw Satan; and he had a great chain in his hand, and it veiled the whole face of the earth with darkness; and he looked up and laughed, and his angels rejoiced.....and the God of heaven looked upon the residue of the people, and he wept.”
Enoch was startled by the Lord’s weeping and asked why he would weep over one little world when his creations were so vast that man could not count them all. The Lord answered, among all the innumerable (to man) worlds I have created, none have been so wicked as this one. Wouldn’t you weep if you were their Father. All I have asked them to do is to love one another and choose me as their Father. But instead they hate each other and have chosen Satan as their Father, and misery shall be their doom, and the whole heavens shall weep over them. Wherefore should not we weep seeing these shall suffer.
These will perish in the flood; I will shut them up; a prison have I prepared for them.
And Enoch called unto the Lord saying: Wilt thou not come again upon the earth? And the Lord said unto Enoch: As I live, even so will I come in the last days, (now) in the days of wickedness and vengeance, to fulfill the oath which I have made unto you concerning the children of Noah (all of us).
And the day shall come that the earth shall rest, but before that day the heavens shall be darkened, and a veil of darkness shall cover the earth; and the heavens shall shake and also the earth; and great tribulation shall be among the children of men, but my people will I preserve.
But before that day Enoch saw great tribulations among the wicked;....and mens hearts failing them, looking forth with fear for the judgements of the Almighty God, which should come upon the wicked.
And the Lord showed Enoch all things, even unto the end of the world; and he saw the day of the righteous the hour of their redemption, and received a fullness of joy.
(Source: Moses chapter 7)
To be continued in Memo 17 I actually posted the second half on the blog in August 2013! I love rereading Dad's memos. Hope you do too.
