The Apostasy and the Restoration

Today's scripture mastery is 2 Thessalonians 2:1-3.  In it Paul teaches that Christ won't come again, until after the church falls in to apostasy:

 1 Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him,

 2 That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.

 3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;

We believe that Christ's original church did fall away in to apostasy.  That is why there are so many different Christian churches, but that all have different beliefs. . .

Now, we believe that the men that attempted to bring the Church back to the way Christ intended were inspired men.  But the time was not yet ready for the restoration.  Wonderful men such as John Calvin,  Martin Luther, and William Tyndale(and many others besides) did some very important things that helped prepare the way for the full restoration of the Gospel.

Just recently we celebrated the 400th anniversary of the translation of the Bible in to English (The work of John Tyndale)  Prior to his work, the common man did not have access to the teachings of Christ in the Bible--other than in Latin, or Hebrew, and then only what the priest wanted to share.  There is a wonderful documentary about the coming forth of the Bible that can be seen here:

The time for the full restoration (not reformation) of Christ's church came in 1820, when Joseph Smith was searching for which church to join.  He had been going to each of the different denominations, trying to figure out which was the "right" church that he should join.  After reading the Bible, and reading in James 1:5 that he should ask God--he did.  That is when he saw God the Father, and His son, Jesus Christ.  They told Joseph that the fullness of the gospel would be restored through him.  To Joseph, the priesthood was restored, additional scripture was given, and the organization of the church as Christ had set up was brought back.

Now, we still don't know when Christ will return in the second coming.  We do know that it is "soon"--though "soon" is in God's time frame, not ours. . .  We can see that the revelations in the scriptures that need to be fulfilled before Christ returns are being fulfilled more and more though.

If you are interested, here is a large list of scriptures that refer to the Apostasy, and the Restoration.