The city sleeps. The hour is later than it knows.

It is the most common challenge I face. Someone reads what I have written about Donald Trump and biblical prophecy, and they ask it, sometimes with genuine curiosity and sometimes with open contempt: "If this is true, why would God tell you and not the First Presidency?"

It is a fair question. I want to answer it carefully, because the answer reveals something important about how God has always worked with His children, in every dispensation, from the beginning until now.

Let me start with a story from the book of Numbers that most people overlook entirely.

The Day Moses Shut Down the Objection Himself

The children of Israel were camped in the wilderness. The Lord had told Moses to gather seventy elders, and He placed His spirit upon them so they could help carry the burden of leading the people. They gathered at the tabernacle and prophesied. But two men, Eldad and Medad, had not gone out to the official gathering. They stayed in the camp. And yet the spirit rested upon them there as well, and they prophesied right among the people.

Someone ran to Moses to report this, clearly expecting it to be stopped. Joshua, Moses's own trusted assistant, said: "My lord Moses, forbid them."

Moses's response is worth sitting with for a moment.

Moses, the prophet himself, shut down the argument. He did not feel threatened by men who prophesied outside the official gathering. He expressed a wish that God would distribute that gift even more broadly across the entire people. The prophet understood something his critics apparently did not: the gift of prophecy is not a monopoly held only by those with official assignments. It never has been.

The Doctrine and Covenants confirms this. Among the spiritual gifts given to the members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, prophecy appears alongside healing, tongues, the discerning of spirits, and knowledge. These are gifts given broadly to the Saints, not restricted to the Quorum of the Twelve. Having a prophetic impression about the last days is not the same thing as claiming to be the prophet of the Church. That distinction matters enormously, and I will come back to it.

The Book of Mormon reinforces this same principle in a verse that is easy to overlook. Enos, describing the conditions among the Nephites during a time of spiritual stubbornness, recorded something that should give every Latter-day Saint pause:

Notice what Enos did not say. He did not say there was one prophet and the rest were out of line. He said there were exceedingly many prophets, and the reason there were so many was that the people were stiffnecked and hard to reach. God does not limit His warning voices to a single channel when His children refuse to listen. He multiplies them. He sends more, not fewer. The very fact that someone outside the official hierarchy is sharing a prophetic message may itself be evidence that the need is urgent, not that the messenger is unauthorized.

Warning Voices Have Always Come First

There is a consistent pattern in sacred history that the objection overlooks completely. Warning voices have always appeared before official declarations, not instead of them. They prepare the people so they can receive what God's authorized servants will eventually confirm.

Abinadi held no position in the religious establishment of his day. He was not a high priest. He had no institutional standing whatsoever. He walked into the court of King Noah and delivered a message the entire leadership rejected. He was burned alive for it. Later, Alma, who had been a young priest in that very court, built an entire church on the foundation of what Abinadi taught. The warning voice came first. The official work followed.

Samuel the Lamanite stood on the walls of Zarahemla. He was not a Nephite. He held no church office. He prophesied to people who shot arrows at him and tried to drive him off. The official record of the Nephites later confirmed and preserved everything he said. His calling was not to replace the authority of the Church. It was to reach those who would not listen through ordinary means.

John the Baptist may be the most striking example of all. He was ordained to his mission before he was old enough to speak, but he held no seat on any religious council. He lived in the wilderness and preached in the desert. The religious establishment of his day considered him a troublemaker. Yet his entire purpose was preparation. He came to announce what was coming, to soften hearts so they could receive it, and then to step aside completely when the One he announced arrived. He was not a false prophet because he lacked official credentials. He was the voice crying in the wilderness that made the official work possible.

I understand my role in exactly the same way. I am not the prophet. I am not claiming authority I do not hold. I am a member of the Church who has studied the scriptures for decades, who has had some remarkable experiences he has published as personal opinion, and who is saying: pay attention, because something is coming that you need to be prepared for. You can read more about how I arrived at these conclusions and what drove me to share them publicly.

What About the Book of Mormon's Antichrists?

When I raise Abinadi and Samuel the Lamanite as examples, someone almost always replies with the three great antichrists of the Book of Mormon: Sherem, Nehor, and Korihor. The implication is clear. They are suggesting that I have more in common with the deceivers than with the warning voices.

It is a serious charge, and it deserves a serious answer. So let me look at what those three men actually did.

Sherem actively sought out the prophet Jacob. He did not go to his own priesthood leader first for counsel. He went directly to God's authorized servant to challenge him, to argue with him, and to accuse him of leading the people astray. He was a man who went TO the prophet to fight him, not one who submitted humbly to priesthood guidance before speaking publicly.

Nehor taught priestcraft, the doctrine that preachers should be paid for their preaching and that all mankind would be saved regardless of how they lived. When Gideon, a man of the Church, challenged him on these teachings, Nehor killed him. He was then brought before Alma the chief judge and condemned. Nehor did not seek out his priesthood leader before beginning his crusade. His entire mission was to overturn the established Church, not serve it.

Korihor denied Christ, denied sin, denied any accountability to God, and preached that every person prospers according to his own genius. He traveled through multiple cities spreading these teachings before he was eventually brought before the high priest Giddonah and then before Alma. Like the others, he never submitted himself to his priesthood leader before going public. He sought an audience to build, not a shepherd to follow.

The comparison to these men actually makes my point more clearly than I could make it on my own. False teachers launch their campaigns by going around authority or confronting it. They build followings first and ask forgiveness never. That pattern is well documented in scripture. It is not my pattern. And I will explain exactly why in a moment.

Who Says the First Presidency Doesn't Know?

The objection assumes that if I have some understanding of prophetic events and the First Presidency has not publicly confirmed it, then I must be wrong. But that assumption rests on a misunderstanding of how prophetic knowledge actually works.

The leaders of the Church have been urging the Saints to prepare for years. President Nelson has spoken repeatedly about gathering Israel, about the urgency of temple work, about being prepared for the days ahead in terms that careful listeners have noticed carry real weight. The message of preparation has been consistent and persistent. What has not come is a specific declaration about the instrument God will use to bring those preparations to their fulfillment.

And there is profound wisdom in that silence. Prophets can and do announce things before they happen. But consider what a premature announcement of this magnitude would actually do. If the President of the Church stood at a General Conference pulpit and named the man God intends to use before that man has received any calling whatsoever, the declaration itself would alter everything that follows. The natural unfolding of God's purposes requires that certain things happen in their own time and sequence, without the weight of a prophetic announcement distorting the process. Their preparation of the Saints is deliberate and visible. Their silence on the specific instrument is equally deliberate.

That silence should not be mistaken for unawareness. Prophets receive revelation they are not yet authorized or required to declare publicly. The timing of a public announcement is not the same as the timing of divine knowledge. I would encourage anyone who believes the First Presidency is simply uninformed about the prophetic significance of current events to pray very sincerely about that assumption before holding it too tightly. You can explore the scriptural framework of the Davidic Servant and see whether the prophetic pattern makes sense independently of any official announcement.

When Isaiah's Prophecies Come to Pass, We Will Know It

Moroni, speaking for the Lord, described a specific moment when John's sealed writings would be revealed:

Notice: "in the eyes of all the people." Not announced exclusively from a pulpit. Not revealed only through an official channel. The unfolding of John's revelations is described as something that happens broadly, something the people recognize when the events themselves begin to unfold.

Nephi taught exactly the same principle from a different angle. He acknowledged that Isaiah's prophecies were difficult for most people to understand in his own day. But he made a remarkable promise about the future:

Both Moroni and Nephi, writing centuries apart, describe a broad awakening of understanding that comes when prophesied events draw near. From the perspective of Isaiah's prophecy and from the perspective of the brother of Jared's sealed record, the pattern is consistent: when the time is right, people will see and know. That recognition does not require an institutional announcement to precede it. The events themselves bear witness. This is the same point I explored in the article about whether Donald Trump appears in biblical prophecy.

What I Am and Am Not Saying

Let me be plain about this, because clarity matters here.

I am not telling anyone to leave the Church. I am not directing people to move to Missouri, set up a commune, or follow me instead of the prophet. I am not claiming authority I do not hold. I am not selling a system or a movement. If anything I have written conflicts with what the living prophet teaches, the prophet wins, full stop. That is not a disclaimer I add for appearances. It is what I actually believe.

What I am doing is showing, from scripture, what I believe is about to happen and why. I am urging people to follow the prophet and get prepared, because that is exactly what the prophets themselves have been urging. The marred servant prophecy deserves to be understood before the events it describes arrive, not after. That is the purpose of sharing it now.

The Single Most Important Thing

I want to close with the point I consider the most essential, because it is the one critics almost never raise, and it is the one that matters most.

When I first began to understand some of the things that are in my book, I was not eager to publish them. I knew exactly what the reaction would be. I knew I would lose friendships. I knew people would call me a false prophet. I knew it would cost me something real and lasting.

Before I published a single word, I went to my stake president.

I sat across from him and laid out everything I intended to write. I told him what I believed I had been shown, and I told him I expected calls for my excommunication. I asked him what I should do. He listened carefully. He told me to follow my heart. He told me to publish it as personal opinion, not as doctrine. And then he said something I have never forgotten: "I've never heard these things before."

He did not tell me to stop. He did not tell me to repent. He encouraged me and blessed the work.

Last Sunday, more than a year later, I sat with him again and shared the updated version of my work. I told him about things I had been shown since the first edition, including several I believe have since come to pass. We talked for several minutes. He asked how the reception had been. I told him it had been rough. He said he could see that.

He did not tell me to stop. He did not tell me to repent. He encouraged me again, knowing full well what I am facing.

Moses wished that all the Lord's people were prophets. Abinadi delivered his warning from outside the official hierarchy, and the official church was built on what he taught. Samuel stood on walls and was pelted with rocks, and the record preserved his words for two thousand years. John the Baptist had no institutional credentials, and the Son of God called him the greatest prophet who had lived.

I am not comparing myself to any of these men. I am simply pointing out that the pattern of warning voices arriving before official confirmation is not an exception in sacred history. It is the rule. It was the rule in Moses's day, in Abinadi's day, in Samuel's day, and in John's day. There is no reason to believe our day would be any different.

That window is still open. I would encourage you to use it.

Kelly Smith is the author of The First Horseman: Donald Trump and Biblical Prophecy. He is a lifelong student of biblical prophecy and a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His work is available at first-horseman.com.