Revelations [sic]
12:6, 14
6
And the woman (the true Church and Bride) fled into the wilderness, where she
hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two
hundred and threescore days )JST said Years instead of Days)
14
And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into
the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times,
and half a time, from the face of the serpent.
The woman feeling into the
wilderness is symbolic of the ancient Church being driven into the wilderness
by Satan, which began the Great Apostasy, where the authority of the priesthood
was taken from the earth following the deaths of Jesus Christ and His apostles.
The religious leaders serving the seven churches or congregations established
at the time of Paul and the early apostles, also died off and were replaced over-and-over
again with flawed men, leading without a ‘prophet head’ receiving
revelation for the entire Church. In time the result was men, who were without
direct authority and revelation, calling other men to lead the Church, so that
the doctrine Jesus taught soon became diluted and corrupted as the years went
by Apostasy soon gave way to the false doctrine that there was no longer a need
for revelation not for prophets or apostles to lead the Church, which doctrine
took away the Church’s foundational rock upon which Christ built His Church. No
longer was the Church firmly fixed on ‘Jesus and His rock of revelation’ and
the leadership Jesus Christ Himself had established. (Martin L. Braden, An
Atheist’s Delusion: A Latter-day Saint’s Perspective on Richard Dawkins’
Anti-Theist/Anti-Christ Book the God Delusion [MLB Publications, 2022], 191)