A commenter on my YouTube channel responded to my video on "The Sound of Freedom" by writing the following.
The comment
We saw the movie on the 4th of July. Very powerful. I have been given the gift of discernment and can see the evil as it creeps and more recently sprinted into the world and lives of those we love. My husband and I have worked diligently to fortify ourselves against it and try to help others to do the same. It is so heartbreaking to see family members and friends that are so into the world while seemingly living the commandments.
Here is something that Avraham Gileadi has put out recently that is for sure to come soon.
“As the “bands of iniquity” tighten around those whose licentious lives, damning addictions, and appetites for power transform their spirits created in God’s image and likeness into “fiends of the infernal pit,” we may anticipate a repeat scenario in our day—or even another enactment of the kinds of conditions that led a mob with blackened faces to kill the prophet Joseph Smith.
The burden of guilt begotten in people’s crossing God’s red lines can indeed become so unbearable that, seeking an outlet for their growing self-hatred, they feel a compulsion to avenge themselves upon nobler souls whose mere presence in the world testifies of their own depravity. Morphing into an “everlasting hatred,” their derangement will stop at nothing to cause chaos.
Resorting to tyranny and barbarity to avenge the “wrongs” done to them—when it is they who are wronging themselves—they fill up the measure of their self-condemnation, hastening God’s judgment as in Roman times and sealing their own miserable demise. For those who maintain a “clear conscience before God and all men,” however, God has prepared a way of escape.”
My response
To get the treatment of Joseph Smith, we first need people as faithful as Joseph Smith. Great evil only shows itself in the face of great good--and vice versa.
The way of escape is not going to be as expected. It's going to be very, very terrible, but still much better than the alternative.
I should elaborate. Avraham is spot on and well-spoken about this. I just want to emphasize--and I know he knows this, because he's written it--that the "escape" will be rough enough that most people wouldn't consider it an escape. They will consider the price far too high because they will be comparing it to the illusion of the modern standard of living. Everyone must past through the eye of the needle. Some very few--including Avraham--have done so by consecrating their lives to God voluntarily, picking up his cross, and following him in the face of the shame of the world.
Most people will not do this, and most people will not even do it when a servant of God tells them its time, as happened when Lot was given the opportunity to take anyone who would listen to him out of Sodom and Gomorrah before it was destroyed. They will not leave behind the riches of the world--their comfortable homes, their comfortable jobs, the respect of their neighbors. You are already seeing this right now. It's not a future event, although it will increase in intensity over time.
Most people will only react once they can only escape with the clothes on their back. I have said this many times, and all who live that long will see those words fulfilled.
There is no reason to wait that long, and much will be lost by all who do so. The chief loss is not their lives, which many will lose, because any who obeys God simply to save their lives will not endure what is to come--the law that is required is higher than that. The chief loss is the good they would otherwise do in helping others while they still have tremendous resources to do so.
Related to these ideas, I made this video this morning. (If it isn't up yet, it's still processing).